Bring on the Canines.

This film was made by Steven Spielberg's studio Amblimation, later renamed Amblin Entertainment. Don Bluth used the studio to produce one of his most best-known, An American Tail: Fieval Goes West. This particular film has no connection to Bluth, though as I understand it, it has quite a following anyway.

Balto
Original release: December 22, 1995

Based on a true story, Balto tells the story of the eponymous sled dog who led a team of dogs bringing coveted antitoxins to a diptheria-stricken Nome, Alaska in 1925. Obviously, the movie takes several liberties from what history tells us of the epidemic. In real life, the transfer of the medicine from Nenana to Nome was a relay race, and Balto was a Siberian Husky and leader of the last leg of the race. In the movie, essentially one sled team (aside from the Balto/Steele swapping as lead) makes the entire journey round-trip, and Balto is an outcast...specifically, a half-wolf. Well, if you're going to make a movie, I guess you have to get your conflict somewhere.

There appears to be some overlap between The Lion King fans and Balto fans. I first learned this when I discovered what is now one of my favorite sites, The Lion King Source, and saw that it had a sister site, aptly named Balto Source. How strange; I hadn't heard much about Balto before, at least not nearly as much as about many Disney movies. So after months of knowing its fans, I finally decided to take a peek at it. I wasn't sure what to expect. Now that I've seen it, I can say that there are definite pros and cons.

Pros:

• Animals! Everybody loves animals. I'm sure that the abundance of fluffy canines contributes greatly to its appeal, since the dog is such a popular animal. ("Canine supremacy," Mahewa growls.) And I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes to see lots of flowy, swishy follow-through with animated fur.
• A cute romance. Oh, okay, okay. Maybe that's not a pro to some of you. But I like it. The recreated "Northern Lights" worked well as a unifying element, and they looked nice.
• A deeply conflicted, but distinctly 'good,' protagonist that you want to identify with. Unlike Charlie B. Barkin. Took way too long for that dog to start looking like a nice guy...
• A healthy dose of action. Grizzly bears, top-dog duels, rocky cliffs, avalanches, falling icicles! Whoo! (Even though the grizzly bear attack scene was a dead rip-off of The Fox and the Hound.)
• Mysticism (and wolves ^^). I love the scene where Balto realizes that he can take pride in his wolf heritage, and howls to the wind. I also thought that the shot where the Northern Lights shifted into a howling wolf head was pretty wicked awesome!

Cons:

• Poorly animated humans. The only decent-looking human is the girl Rosy.
• Predictability. Several times I felt like saying, "I saw that coming." Also, there were a couple of scenes where I thought the staging/pacing/camera work could have been made a lot more dramatic than they were.
• Immemorable soundtrack. I liked the introductory music, but after the first scene I paid no attention to the music at all. Very generic.

Did you know that this film contains live action segments? The introduction and conclusion are filmed in New York, where two characters talk about the story and see the statue and memorial of the famous dog. These scenes serve to reemphasize that the movie was grounded in real history. Here's the statue if you're curious.

I can see how one might make a connection between Balto and The Lion King: they're both about animals, which is always an appealing theme, and they involve many classic movie elements: drama, action, adventure, romance. However, I have to say that Balto doesn't even come close to top dog on my list...pardon the pun. It's good enough, but not excellent.

Mahewa's rating: 3.0/5




My younger sister watched this with me and said that she really liked it. She also accurately noted that I didn't seem very "enthusiastic" after the viewing was over. To each his own, they say. You may very well come to like this movie; then you'd be right at home with my good friends on Balto Source.