Balto

There are a plentiful number of animated movies starring talking animals, to the point that they’ve become a staple in the medium are usually the go-to sidekick options for most of Disney’s library (as well as any that wish to copy Disney). With this in mind, when a movie starring talking wolves is being advertised as being ”based on a true story”, it will no doubt raise several questions that are more than likely not going to be given plausible answers. The movie in question was the 1995 Amblin Entertainment animated movie, Balto. In 1925 in the outskirts of Nome, Alaska, the film follows Balto (voiced by Kevin Bacon), a half wolf half dog hybrid who is seen as an outcast by the humans (who fears his wolf heritage) and by the other dogs of the town, particularly the town’s favourite sled dog, Steel (voiced by Jim Cummings). His only friends are a Russian snow goose named Boris (voiced by Bob Hoskins), two polar bears named Muk and Luk (both voiced by Phil Collins), and a female dog named Jenna (voiced by Bridget Fonda), whom Balto has a crush on. While Balto’s hopes of becoming a sleigh dog may seem like an impossibility, his chance may come when an epidemic of Diphtheria spreads throughout the town, leaving the children slowly dying in bed without any medicine due to severe weather conditions preventing the shipment from arriving. The sled team, led by Steel, is sent out to retrieve the medicine but get lost on the way back, which spurns Balto to go and track them down. Once he finds the team, it is his job to lead them back to the town, contend with a power-mad Steel who is now trying to prevent Balto from returning home with the medicine due to his own ego, and save the children before they meet a tragic end. After failing to bring in a profit at the box office due to coming out around the same time as Toy Story (which quickly overshadowed it) Balto eventually grew its own following through impressive home video sales and direct-to-DVD sequels. While not a great film by any means and carrying its own cliches and tropes that hold it back from being truly great, it does stand as a likeable enough flick with elements that are truly worth checking out like the interesting story, good voice acting and amazing animation.

The film shouldn’t have emphasized the fact that it was based on a real event. of the story. While it did take inspiration from the real-life story of Balto and how he and several other sled dogs helped save children infected with diphtheria in the 1925 serum run to Nome, the movie is more hindered by its constant admittance of its truthfulness rather than assisted by it. This is a real solid story to make into a movie, and even an animated framework is a smart idea to bring a new perspective, visual flair, and even emotional engagement for a younger audience to the story, but with this animated framework comes several animated cliches that are poorly utilized and clearly don’t match in a story that is about the survival of dying sick children. Even just ignoring the fact that historical inaccuracies are kind of all over this picture (that will happen when you have talking animals in your true story), it is also a shame to see crucial parts of the real event left out in exchange for a more streamlined delivery, which wouldn’t  have been a problem if the advertising wasn’t constantly forceful this idea into the audience’s head (Balto wasn’t even the dog who ran the longest distance but rather just ran the last stretch, with that honor going to a dog named Togo and his musher, Leonhard Seppala). The set-up for this story written by Cliff Ruby and Elana Lesser does have promise to it and even in its delivery, there is a calm and relaxing atmosphere to the picture that makes it come across grounded enough to make the more aggressive portions of this story feel more authentic. The director for this movie was Simon Wells, who is not only the great-grandson of the famous author, H. G. Wells, but he was also one of the directors who worked on The Prince of Egypt, which clearly shows that he is a talented director that is capable of commanding a project that, while still geared towards children, can have an energy, pacing and even attitude that adults can appreciated. Sadly, while the film does have its risky elements, a lot of them are either held back or completely smothered by the fact that it’s clearly trying to emulate a Disney quality with everything from the comic relief side characters, the pretty animation, to even a lot of the dialogue, feeling very akin to that style of making a kid’s movie. The script overall by Ruby and Lesser, along with David Steven Cohen and Roger S. H. Schulman feels like the part where it becomes too much of a kid-centric film (or rather an overly simplistic kid-centric), as it mostly dots in these annoying lame tropes from animated properties in a story that isn’t enhanced by any of these elements, and that mixed with a rushed epilogue makes a lot of the discussions about wolf prejudice and finding comfort in your own skin, not feeling as impactful or relevant as they could be.

The characters are presented in a very cartoonish and even standard fashion where little complexity can come through (despite the premise being prime for a lot of complex issues), but they are still likeable enough from their designs and voice acting that you genuinely want to see them survive this ordeal. Balto is written as a very simple character, but it works within this story and Kevin Bacon is perfectly fine in the role, although his severe lack of dialogue during the final portion of the story does leave him feeling a little incomplete as a role, and the lack of any real epilogue for the story makes a lot of the characters kind of feel like this. Jenna as the love interest is not the most interesting but is passable enough and Bridgette Fonda is doing her best playing a pretty straight character even though it can come across as a little flat in moments (its honestly hard to tell whether its intentional or not). Steel as the villain is one a whole other level than any other character in this movie, with Jim Cummings’ overly despicable voice and his design that feels specifically crafted to have every angle drip and ooze with evilness taking what is honestly just some one-note trope character and making him very entertaining to watch and listen to. While most of the leads for the film are stock but sensible enough for the story, the rest of the cast feel very much like overly goofy cartoon characters and are written and drawn in a manner that plays into this idea a little too much. Most of the comic relief in general are not very good due to poor writing as well as having no real purpose outside of injecting in forced laughs in a story that doesn’t require it. The polar bears could be completely taken out of this movie, and nothing would even be missed, and Phil Collin’s weird voice just makes them more annoying them anything else. The goose doesn’t work whenever a comedic moment has to happen, but the brief sentimental moments are pretty effective to their credit, which could mainly come down to Hoskins’ being a pretty great talent even in a standard role (he can’t get the accent down, but those scenes are still solid enough to make it work).

For an animated film that wasn’t released by Disney at the time, this is a gorgeous looking movie. Being able to feature several animators who worked films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, We’re Back: A Dinosaur Story, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, and several DreamWorks movies, was a good sign of quality, as the richness of the backgrounds, the vibrancy of the colors and the expressive of the characters always shines through in this movie. You’d figure an area like a frozen tundra wouldn’t be the most visually pleasing thing to look at for a long period of time, but with how they frame the lighting, the environment and even the characters brings so much life to this whole environment. It can even pretty stylized in certain sequences, with the most stand-out moment being a fight scene during the middle involving a black bear, with the line-work, coloration and even angles getting really inventive, dynamic, and interesting (and the director having also acted as the action supervisor for Kung Fu Panda certainly helps out). The music by James Horner is also pretty good, nothing out of the ordinary for his music, but that still produces a good score that brings this upbeat but also grand enough piece to work within this tone and presentation. There is a random out of nowhere live-action portion of the story that acts as an intro and outro for the story, but it feels unneeded, very out of place, and just raises many questions in regards to the story-teller (considering the woman is supposed to be the little girl dying in bed, Miriam Margoyles does not look like someone in her 90s).

Even though its follow grew slowly after its release, Balto is still a pretty solid film that is worth looking out. It could have been a great film if more things were fleshed out, the ending was handled better, and these Disney-like elements and the constant reminder of its ”true event” status weren’t cramping what could’ve been a nice, grounded picture that alluded to the truth and forced people to look at the true story for themselves. Overall it does still have a lot of cool stuff to offer, it does bring light to a pretty great true story and is presented in a confused, but still stable enough manner to be emotionally engaging,  the characters are simple, but you do care about them, the animation is amazing to look at, and that classic gritty atmosphere that surrounds this movie gives it a darker, but also more memorable edge. An underground flick that deserves to be recognized, check it out and see it for yourself. It’s sure to deliver all the charm that dog lovers or even non-dog lovers would want.