I recently had the opportunity to watch this film for the first time all the way through. I had seen bits and pieces of it on cable before as a kid, but I had never actually seen it all the way through, so nostalgia does not factor into my experience with this film.
Historical inaccuracies aside, this film is fun and heartfelt and a good movie to curl up on the couch with your kids during a snowstorm, with the lights off. It sends a good message of accepting what others see as your flaws and accepting that they might not be flaws after all. By the end, Balto allows himself to be who he is, despite ridicule from others.
However, in my opinion, it does seem to hit too many of the beats and clichés that Disney follows (admittedly, I looked for this on Disney+ because I did think it was a Disney property). There's a scene where an animal character winds up in a chef's kitchen and is under threat of begin chopped up and cooked, like Sebastian in The Little Mermaid, the main protagonist is a charismatic, homeless stray that everyone makes fun of and who jumps across rooftops, like Aladdin, and there's a trio of the main antagonist's followers that provide comedy relief through their own character tropes, like the hyenas from The Lion King. These so-called Disney tropes were pretty glaring to me, but overall didn't detract from my enjoyment.
There are a couple other flaws I had with this film, one of which was the unremarkable voice acting, with Bob Hoskins as Boris and Jim Cummings as Steele being really the only two exceptions in my eyes. However, the major gripe I have is the lack of characterization for the humans. Granted, it is a movie about dogs, so I don't take it too much to heart, but one scene that made me do a bit of a double take was when the serum arrives in Nome. The musher is clearly in serious medical trouble and no one seems to really care when the team arrives in town. Everyone ignores the dying man next to them (and yes, I know the children are dying, but even the doctor didn't acknowledge the man in critical condition right next to him). The only acknowledgement we get regarding the injured musher are two throwaway lines: one nameless person asking how he was and an equally nameless person answering that he was gonna be okay. Both lines are said offscreen.
It's a children's movie about talking dogs and Alaskan wilderness and is, in my opinion, a great movie to watch to escape the bustlings of day-to-day life. The film sets out to entertain children and offer some things for accompanying adults as well, and it succeeds, but it only does just that. I would absolutely suggest this movie to someone looking for something that is family-friendly and reignites a child-like feeling in their gut.
Historical inaccuracies aside, this film is fun and heartfelt and a good movie to curl up on the couch with your kids during a snowstorm, with the lights off. It sends a good message of accepting what others see as your flaws and accepting that they might not be flaws after all. By the end, Balto allows himself to be who he is, despite ridicule from others.
However, in my opinion, it does seem to hit too many of the beats and clichés that Disney follows (admittedly, I looked for this on Disney+ because I did think it was a Disney property). There's a scene where an animal character winds up in a chef's kitchen and is under threat of begin chopped up and cooked, like Sebastian in The Little Mermaid, the main protagonist is a charismatic, homeless stray that everyone makes fun of and who jumps across rooftops, like Aladdin, and there's a trio of the main antagonist's followers that provide comedy relief through their own character tropes, like the hyenas from The Lion King. These so-called Disney tropes were pretty glaring to me, but overall didn't detract from my enjoyment.
There are a couple other flaws I had with this film, one of which was the unremarkable voice acting, with Bob Hoskins as Boris and Jim Cummings as Steele being really the only two exceptions in my eyes. However, the major gripe I have is the lack of characterization for the humans. Granted, it is a movie about dogs, so I don't take it too much to heart, but one scene that made me do a bit of a double take was when the serum arrives in Nome. The musher is clearly in serious medical trouble and no one seems to really care when the team arrives in town. Everyone ignores the dying man next to them (and yes, I know the children are dying, but even the doctor didn't acknowledge the man in critical condition right next to him). The only acknowledgement we get regarding the injured musher are two throwaway lines: one nameless person asking how he was and an equally nameless person answering that he was gonna be okay. Both lines are said offscreen.
It's a children's movie about talking dogs and Alaskan wilderness and is, in my opinion, a great movie to watch to escape the bustlings of day-to-day life. The film sets out to entertain children and offer some things for accompanying adults as well, and it succeeds, but it only does just that. I would absolutely suggest this movie to someone looking for something that is family-friendly and reignites a child-like feeling in their gut.