AniMat Classical Reviews
Balto III: Wings of Change
Ah yes, it's time we re-visit 20th Century Nome, Alaska to see how our favorite half-dog, half-wolf breed is doing. As you may recall a couple of years back, I reviewed the first film that came out in 1995 and it was a really enjoyable movie. Unfortunately, the movie's good quality could not save it's animation company, Amblimation, from shutting down after the movie was released. Strange enough though, the movie has produced two Direct-to-Video sequels thanks to Universal Pictures, Balto II: Wolf Quest and this movie, which came out in early 2005 just 3 years after the first sequel. Now the Balto sequels are one of the lesser known Direct-to-Videos movies laid out by Universal, especially with the competition made against The Land Before Time sequels. But getting back to Wings of Change, can this movie fly high like Duke and his plane? Or will it be late to deliver something good like Kodi and his teammates do? Let's find out.
The Story: Before I go into the story I just need to point out that like the second movie, this film makes no acknowledgement of the setting being in 20th century Alaska. Well, maybe that's not true regarding the airplane part, but it just glances over its timeline. But back onto the story, honestly, the movie's premise feels kind of complicated. What I mean is that there are at least 4 plot elements that drive the movie to be what it is, so I'm going to try and explain these plots as best as I can. The start of the movie is about Balto helping his son Kodi beat a plane flown by a man named Duke after he offers to take the dog's place in helping deliver the mail for Nome since they keep running late and it also focuses on Boris trying to seduce a female goose named Stella. Both of these plots feel like they're only there to drive the beginning of the movie. As for the two other plotlines, they strangely end up driving the film's second-half as one is about Balto, Stella, Muk, and Luk going to the wilderness to save Duke when his plane crashes along with Boris who accidentally stowed away on Duke's plane and the other is about Kodi questioning the morality of holding a personal grudge against someone. Now while I feel like these plots only pad out the movie's run-time in both the first and second acts, I will admit that there are some good things about them, like how the movie's first act is a more-or-less decently-handled Man vs. Machine plot with the second act having a good search-and-rescue mission while mixing in a good moral about not letting personal grudges cloud your judgement and a subtle message about appreciating what machinery can do for people. However, there are some problems that can come with these stories, like how one of the plotlines is your standard search-and-rescue mission, Boris's romance story can be viewed as a 'guys lies to impress girl' cliché, and the story involving Kodi gives out a rather mean feeling. As for other elements of the movie like the humor, admittedly some of the jokes can be rather funny while others are rather hit-or-miss or just plain mediocre. If there is something in the movie that's entirely good, it would have to be the heartwarming moments that the characters can share with each other, like how Jenna at one point sings a song about Balto and his relationship with Kodi and Boris when he and Stella finally get together in the end. The movie feels like a juggle of a bunch of potential Balto sequels, but the result has came out...well, decent.
The Animation: Since this movie is a Direct-to-Video sequel, it's safe to say that we should not be expecting anything grandiose in order to be impressed and quite frankly, this is quite true. In regards to how the movie is animated, it looks like something you'd see in an average early 2000s cartoon, which is rather coincidental if I think about since this movie came out in 2004. Starting things off with the backgrounds, they look rather generic like Nome looks like a typical town and the snow laid out around the place isn't really great. Same can be said about the forest as it just look like your typical woods with trees and mountains that you can find in any other animated feature that has a forest. The only thing about the backgrounds that can be a little bit noteworthy is a the use of CGI on things like D some of the buildings that are in Nome, Balto's boat, and the forest, though that barely makes up for the generic environment. As for the characters and how they look, I will admit that the animals and humans do look like something from he first movie, but in tv show form as they look a lot more generic in comparison, but at least tolerable considering that this is a Direct-to-Video movie. This is especially true for the coloring of the characters that fit into whatever environment they are in like day, night, sunset in Nome, or in the forest. As for the characters animation, that's probably the biggest saving grace for the animation as the characters move rather smoothly and down-to-earth and the texture on the fur of the dogs and bears and the feathers on Boris and Stella kind of blend well with the environments they are in. If I would have to single out something in the film that is beautifully animated, I would have to go with Duke's plane. I mean the hand drawn-esque CGI on the device is so impressive, especially when it flies that it single-handedly ends up becoming one of the things in the movie that is worth seeing. The animation here may be more suited for television, but that doesn't mean there's nothing good in it.
The Characters: Since we're returning to Nome, Alaska to meet our favorite dog-wolf hybrid and his friends, it would probably be well-advised to keep your expectations low because it is something of a well-know fact that sequels can sometimes mess with our characters. Starting things off with Balto, he's actually more three-dimensional here; he starts off as trying to live up to his son's idolation of him by helping him in the mail delivery race but he soon tries to go and help his competition when he gets loss in the wilderness and he is even shown earlier to be appreciating Duke's plane and what it can do, showing that he is still the humble, good-hearted hero from the first movie. For the rest of the characters from the first movie, I wouldn't say they're as well-developed as Balto is, like Boris is now this Casanova bird when he tries to woo Stella and later ends up as an unfortunate stowaway on Duke's plane, Jenna is just the loving wife to Balto and the loving mother to Kodi, and Muk and Luk, while still having their innocent charm, only appear in the movie just to either help out Balto when Boris gets lost. As for the new characters, they can range from plot-relevant to completely pointless. Kodi is Balto's son who is extremely proud of his job as mail carrier to the point that he holds a personal grudge against Duke for nearly running them out of business and this can leave you with a bad taste about him as he cares more about his job than he does about a dying person, though as the movie progresses, he does start to come around. You also have Stella, a female goose and Boris's new love interest, who I honestly have conflicting feelings about because on one hand, she looks to be sexually over-the-top, her Brooklyn accent can get demeaning, and her romance arc with Boris is quite one-dimensional, but on the other hand, she can have a lot of funny moments and shows that she has a heart when she tries to help Balto rescue Boris when Duke's plane crashes. Speaking of Duke, he's a pilot who offers his services to the mail company so that the mail can be more on-time, but later becomes a victim of a crash and needs to be rescued and that's pretty much his whole character. As for the rest like Kodi's sled-team, Dipsy, Mel and the Moose villains, they are completely forgettable and uninteresting characters you'd probably expect to find in a Direct-to-Video sequel. The characters here are sadly the biggest downside in the movie. While some are likable and engaging, others are either generic or leave you not really caring about them.
The Songs: Okay, I've been holding this in for the entire review so I might as well just say it, WHAT WAS THE POINT OF MAKING THIS MOVIE A MUSICAL?! Seriously, what was the point of it? The movie itself is just fine with it's relatively down-to-earth storytelling, but for some reason, the people who make this movie believed hat we had to have musical numbers to entertain the audience when in reality, they're just filler to pad out the movie's run time. Now don't get me wrong, not all of the songs are bad. In fact, there is only one of them I enjoy and that is "You Don't Have to Be a Hero" as sung by Jenna because, as I said previously, it is very heartwarming. As for the other two "Everything Flies" and "Come Up and Fly", they are only there to entertain a younger audience or, again, to pad out the movie's run time. For the former, I will admit that the song is rather nice to listen to, plus the visuals are rather good to look at since it appears at the beginning (and end) of the film, but the song still felt unnecessary. As for the latter, well, it's just a seductive siren song by Stella that is mostly likely made just for the sake of fanservice visuals. If there is any other good thing I can say about the songs, it's that at least there are 3 of them and the movie doesn't really focus on them so much. Despite that though, it is safe to say that this movie would be better off without being a musical.
Well, it's not as good as the original Balto, but it's not as bad as the other sequel though. Balto II: Wings of Change is a Direct-to-Video sequel that is mostly harmless and capable of entertaining the audience, but it's still held back by some negatives like a complicated story, more-or-less decent animation, one-dimensional characters, and pointless musical numbers. If you guys are avid Balto fans and want to see more of the wolf-dogs adventures beyond the first film then you can watch it, but I wouldn't say you're missing out on much. Other than that though, since this moivie is basically the end of Balto's adventures, it's probably safe to say that ending the Balto film series before it suffers from franchise fatigue was probably best for everyone.
Story: 6/10
Animtion: 6/10
Characters: 5/10
Songs: 4/10
Score: 5/10