Video Review: Balto

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"Balto" leaves me a little cold

By Michelle Klein-Häss

Director: Simon Wells
Producer: Steve Hickner
Art Director: Hans Bacher
Character Animation: Carlos Grangel, Nicholas Marlet, Kristof Serrand, Jeff Varab, Dick Zondag, Sahin Ersoz, Rodolphe Guenoden, Rob Stevenhagen, Patrick Maté
Effects Animation Director: Mike Smith
Writers: Elana Lesser, Cliff Ruby, David Steven Cohen, Roger S.H. Schulman
Voice cast: Balto: Kevin Bacon, Jenna: Bridget Fonda, Boris: Bob Hoskins, Steele: Jim Cummings, Young Rosy: Juliette Brewer, Muk and/or Luk: Phil Collins

I have never been very impressed by the animated films and TV shows of Amblinmation, a company which is now subsumed under the Dreamworks SKG media-giant-to-be. This movie, Balto is the last film to be made under the aegis of Amblinmation.

Let it first be said that this is perhaps the best thing Amblinmation has yet to do. This is a beautifully animated movie which in a purely animation-art sense is right up there in quality. It "cheats" a little in the movement department, using Anime devices like blurred pans to hide the fact that it is basically animated like a TV show rather than the "cushy" feel of Disney. I don't think that's a bad thing...if the material you are working with is strong enough to sustain an hour and 15 minute feature and you start with good solid poses (both of which exemplifies such efforts as Bebe's Kids) you can do it and not make your movie suffer.

The truth is, though, that despite the strong subject matter they had to work with (the historical events which inspire the yearly Iditarod dog sled race) the weak storytelling and attempts to cram as many references to past animated movies and the past work of Steven Spielberg (jeez, that ET reference wasn't TOO obvious...why didn't you guys just show that dogsled flying across the moon to hammer it home!) as possible into the visual jokes and dialogue.

It seems the writers took notebooks into The Lion King and spent hours looking at videotapes of Lady And The Tramp to come up with the story. You have the title character, Balto, who is half-husky and half-wolf, falling deeply in puppy-love with a very Lady-like husky named Jenna. She's also being pursued by the egotistical, caddish and scheming Steel, who looks like someone's attempt to take Andreas Deja's wonderful character design of Scar from TLK and turn it canine. The dog belongs to a little girl, Rosy, drawn with huge Tezuka-influenced eyes who very soon after takes ill with Diptheria. Tug, tug those heartstrings, guys! The pathos were laid on really thick.

The stormy weather thwarts attempts to send the anti-toxin serum via ship and old-fashioned biplane (this is set in the '20s, although with the lack of real period feel you'd not know it at times) and as a last resort it is sent via train to a village 500 miles from the goal of Nome, Alaska which is the train from Anchorage's last stop. The serum would have to go the rest of the way by sled. The town dogs are rounded up to see which ones would be fast enough, and Balto is denied a spot on the team by Steel's trickery.

The team gets lost, and Balto winds up running off into the woods to find them. Further discussion of the story would be a spoiler, so I won't go into much detail. But the hit parade of cliches from other animated movies keeps going, up to a real blatant TLK ripoff where Balto is visited by a white wolf which could be a ghost or could be real...the moment is left very ambiguous. You almost expect to hear the wolf utter "Remember who you are, Balto"...jeez, where did the writers put their imaginations???

The supporting characters are pretty annoying. There's Boris, a Russian goose straight out of the Shtetls who talks like a Borscht Belt comedian. (Gotta hand it to Bob Hoskins for some great dialect work, though!) Then there's two cuddly, sickly sweet Polar Bears named Muk and Luk...one speaks, the other doesn't, and I couldn't tell you which one is which. The speaking bear is voiced by Phil Collins, who manages to turn in a performance as obnoxious as his most recent musical work with Genesis and solo is. There's no excuse...Collins was great in the live-action movie Buster and did a great turn in the all-star Tommy special in 1989 or so as the "wicked Uncle Ernie." He has character actor chops...I don't know whether to blame the script or the voice direction or both. What's also weird about Muk and Luk is that they are drawn in a very sketchy Chuck Jones-influenced style that is 180° removed from the Anime/Classics Illustrated/Disney amalgam which characterizes the other characters' design.

The villain's henchmen are goofy nincompoops in the grand tradition of Disney goofy villain's sidekicks like the Hyenas in TLK. The humor of their pratfalls and "yes man" schtick is a drag on the movie, just as the pratfalls and schtick of Boris, Muk and Luk are a distraction. Couldn't the movie just have focused on the potentially strong competition between Balto and Steel? Would that have been too much to ask? Probably.

There are a few mindblowing sequences in here, like the fight between Balto and a very well-designed Grizzly Bear (it was a real incongruity to see the two "wacky" Polar Bears cowering in fear of a bear that, in the wild, a REAL Polar Bear would have no problem taking out. The silent lummox bear (again, it might have been Muk, it might have been Luk but I have no clue as to which were which) could have ripped the Grizzly's lungs out, but no, the story had to have the artificial dramatic climax of Balto fighting the bear. And there wouldn't be any drama with a Polar Bear which had befriended Balto defending him? That's a missed opportunity which would have yielded a much stronger scene.

And the judicious use of CGI in the opening race sequence and the Ice Cave sequence towards the end of the film was actually well-incorporated into the drawn animation, unlike the TV show Spiderman, for example. That, some great effects animation and some beautiful painterly backgrounds make me really want to like this movie. But I cannot. It fails in too many ways.

Note: "Balto" was released to home video in April 1996.

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