At its core, Disney’s new animated film Bolt is a movie about adoption. Through a clever premise and some great voicework from the leads, it attempts to say something profound about loyalty and devotion, and it mostly succeeds. Bolt (John Travolta) is one of the biggest television stars in the world…only he doesn’t know it. In his own television show, he’s a super-powered dog who fights crime alongside his real-life owner Penny (Miley Cyrus). In reality, he’s a normal dog who’s been tricked into believing his outlandish superhero backstory so that he can maintain a plausible level of emotion while on screen. But when Bolt gets accidentally air-mailed to New York City, he must find his way back to his owner in LA with the help of a plucky cat, Mittens (played by Susie Essman), and an overenthusiastic hamster (Mark Walton). Along the way, he’ll struggle with the apparent loss of his powers and discover the true level of his devotion to Penny (. his “person”).

Virtually all the supporting characters in Bolt are completely one-note, from the on-the-nose parody of Penny’s Hollywood agent (Greg Germann) to Bolt’s director (played characteristically and deliciously by James Lipton). Accordingly, the degree to which they are amusing is inversely related with the amount of time they are on screen (the Hamster character, Rhino, wore particularly thin on my nerves as the film went on). The only reason the movie works as a whole is due to the good work of John Travolta as Bolt and Susie Essman and Mittens. Travolta, whose career has spiked up and down dramatically ever since Pulp Fiction, acquits himself surprisingly well as the titular hero. Although I was expecting to hear a younger voice come out of Bolt’s mouth, Travolta (who is 54) was able to convey a pathos that fit Bolt’s arc rather well, especially as the movie builds to an emotional climax. Meanwhile, Essman’s Mittens is hilarious as the “straight man” to Bold’s deluded self, yet she also proves that there’s slightly more depth and tragedy to her character than you would think. Essman really helps to hold the film together and her New York accent is as impeccable as it is appropriate for her character.

There’s a lot to like in Bolt, which is why I’d encourage anyone to see it. The over-the-top opening chase sequence is wonderful fun, and the film’s overarching message is utterly wholesome. There is also the matter of the pigeons in this film, who are unbelievably amusing at providing the local flavor of each region that Bolt travels through (they are the character equivalent of the penguins in the Madagascar series, perhaps one of the only amusing elements from those films). Yet while Bolt reaches for the greatness of a Pixar film, and comes quite close to that standard, it ultimately relies too much on easy jokes and shallow characters to attain it. It’s a great film for the family, or even for a date, but I don’t think it’s one I’ll be revisiting very often.