Television star and superdog Bolt (left, voiced by John Travolta) travels cross-country with companions Mittens (centre, voiced by Susie Essman) and a TV-obsessed hamster named Rhino (voiced by Mark Walton) in the animated adventure film Bolt. (Disney Enterprises)

It’s a sign of either progress or profound hypocrisy that many recent animated and kid-oriented features — from Enchanted to WALL*E — tackle the theme of the mediated nature of modern “reality.” While it’s heavy stuff for the tots at whom these films are ostensibly targeted, the critical bent seems to serve as a panacea for their vigilant alterna-parents who feel conflicted about filling the heads of their spawn with meticulously marketed franchises.

In Bolt, the new cartoon opus from those Zen philosophers at Disney, the gentle naïf forced to realize that his life is one big sham is, er, a dog. Not just any dog, though: a dog with a job. The titular Bolt (passably voiced by John Travolta) is one of the most bankable talents in Hollywood (he even does his own stunts!). As the namesake and star of his own popular weekly TV series, Bolt uses bared teeth and an earth-shaking super-bark to defend precocious tween Penny (voiced by Miley Cyrus ), his beloved owner. But the valiant canine is unconsciously method — he thinks the shoot ’em, zap ’em antics on the soundstage are real, that he actually possesses super-pooch powers like, say, the ability to vaporize trucks with one steely laser stare from his puppy-dog eyes. The folks behind the show are determined to keep it that way, insisting that the verisimilitude of the series depends on Bolt’s complete obliviousness to the world beyond the walls of the studio set.

They don’t count on the fact that a dog’s devotion to his master is impossible to contain. And when a cliffhanger leaves Bolt convinced that Penny’s in the evil clutches of cat-stroking, green-eyed Dr. Calico (Malcolm McDowell, gleefully riffing on Bond baddie Blofeld), he breaks free from his hermetic trailer to try to find the girl. A cardboard-box debacle gets our furry friend inadvertently shipped to New York City; it’s on these mean streets that Bolt starts to wake up and smell the, uh, kibble. Cars are immune to that steely laser stare, and our hero’s also lost the ability to paralyze foes with one quick flick of his paw. At first, Bolt blames the Styrofoam packing peanuts in his shipping carton for sapping his strength. Gradually, though, he starts to realize that there’s something fishy about the self-contained world he’s lived in until now.

Bolt succeeds because the innate drive of a dog's unconditional love and devotion — a commitment to One True Love — hews close to the happily-ever-after stuff that fairy tales are made of.

Bolt’s reluctant Manhattan mentor is Mittens, a scrawny but tough alley cat voiced with world-weary wiseass gusto by Susie Essman, who cannily antagonized Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Bolt ropes her into his cross-country quest to save Penny (quite literally; Bolt ties Mittens to his leash). Along the way, they encounter one of Bolt’s biggest fans — TV-obsessed trailer park hamster Rhino, who insists on joining the unlikely pair, even though he’s trapped in a plastic ball.

Beneath the archetypal Incredible Journey-type tale of animal love and valour, Bolt is riddled with the sort of satirical pop-cult twists that have enlivened digitally animated flicks in the post-Shrek era. Industry in-jokes abound, from the oily clichés spouted by Penny’s sleazebag agent (Ally McBeal’s Greg Germann) to the sycophantic duo of wannabe screenwriter pigeons. (The pigeons in Bolt, it should be noted, are a culture unto themselves; they boast regionally specific accents and iridescent feathers rendered in gorgeous CGI.)

Unfortunately, the writing here is nowhere near as sharp as Brad Bird’s well-crafted scripts for The Incredibles and Ratatouille. The winking references in Bolt feel more smug than savvy; the work of co-writers Chris Williams and Dan Fogelman (who brought us the underwhelming Vince Vaughn vehicle Fred Claus) frequently comes across as if they’re revelling in how awesome they are for taking digs at showbiz. And though the textures here are downright captivating — from those feathers to Bolt’s snow-white fur to Penny’s mussed bob — Disney’s digi-visuals also fall short in comparison to any PIXAR or even Dreamworks production.

Bolt (left, voiced by John Travolta) discovers there's more to being a hero than having super powers when he searches for his owner and co-star Penny (voiced by Miley Cyrus) in Bolt. (Disney Enterprises)

Still, Bolt has a lot of heart. A subplot involving broken-hearted Penny’s powerlessness in the face of industry slimeballs has emotional resonance, likely because Cyrus (who gives a surprisingly nuanced voice performance) knows too well the perils of being a child star in the Disney factory.

Ultimately — and unsurprisingly — it’s the bones thrown toward dog fanciers that work the best. When Rhino tries to cause a diversion at an animal shelter by rolling into the room where the canines are kennelled, the mutts’ internal monologues (“Ball? Ball? Ball! Ball! Ball!”) are hilarious. Even when he’s still convinced that his tele-narrative is real life, Bolt can’t mask his canine instincts — he goes nuts for a squeaky carrot and circles several times before settling into his bed. Most notably, Bolt succeeds because the innate drive of a dog's unconditional love and devotion — a commitment to One True Love — hews close to the happily-ever-after stuff that fairy tales are made of.

And though the “odd couple” trope may seem played out, the gentle evolution of the relationship between natural enemies Mittens and Bolt is oddly affecting. There’s a truly lovely section in which the streetwise cat teaches her coddled companion how to be a “real dog,” walking him through everything from chasing sticks to hanging his head out of a car window. Essman delivers a brief monologue on the canine envy experienced by all felines (they hate dogs, it seems, because they want to be dogs) as though she’s angling for an Oscar. Like Bolt, the audience slowly realizes that it’s those who seem the most different from us who can teach us the most about our true selves. Corny as it may sound, that implicit message is a solid and decent thing for any kid to learn, even if it’s only on a subliminal level.

Bolt opens across Canada on Nov. 21.

Sarah Liss writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.