The movie Bolt was a surprise. Unlike The Tale of Desperaux, which was an unpleasant surprise, Bolt was actually a pleasant surprise!

Here’s the thing to know about Bolt – the opening scene appears to be violent – ‘bad’ people chasing a little girl and her dog, then the dog turns and unleashes his super bark on the bad people, and they get bowled over.

But you very quickly realize that this is a scene being filmed for the television series in which the girl and the dog star, and the scene is over in moments. In fact, if you were concerned about it, you could simply miss the first two or three minutes of the film, and explain to your child that the dog thinks he has super powers because in the television show he does.

The rest of the movie was not only unobjectionable, but quite enjoyable. Again, we were pleasantly surprised.

There is some very mild potty humour, and there are a couple of sad moments (but they quickly resolve, they are only temporarily sad) and at the end there is an intense scene where the girl really is trapped in a fire – that could be scary for younger children, although you can, again, let them know that everything will be fine.

And it really will be.