Balto

An outcast half-wolf risks his life to prevent a deadly epidemic from ravaging Nome, Alaska.

• Director:Simon Wells
• Genre:Adventure / Animation / Family
• Runtime:74 minutes

Cast

Kevin Bacon : Balto (voice)
Bob Hoskins : Boris the Goose (voice)
Bridget Fonda : Jenna (voice)
Jim Cummings : Steele the Sled Dog (voice)
Phil Collins : Muk and Luk (voice)

The film opens with an old woman and a young girl in Central Park in New York City stopping at a statue of a sled dog. The woman explains that the dog represented is Balto and begins the story that happened in 1925.

Balto is a wolf-dog hybrid, shunned by both humans and dogs in the town of Nome. His only friends are Boris, a Russian goose, and Muk and Luk, two polar bears. Balto and Boris live on a grounded boat outside Nome, while Muk and Luk are occasional visitors.

One day, a dogsled race is being held. At the head end of one of the teams is Steele, a proud and fierce competitor. Balto and Boris are in Nome to watch the finish. While waiting for the teams to arrive, Balto sees a young girl named Rosy and her female husky, Jenna. He is immediately smitten by Jenna, and when Rosy loses her hat to the wind, Balto outruns the sled team and retrieves the hat to show off. However, when he tries to get closer to Jenna, she and Rosy are pulled away by Rosy’s parents. Balto and Boris dejectedly leave town, but not before being antagonized by Steele and his companions, Nikki, Kaltag and Star.

The night after the race, Rosy and several other children fall ill. As Jenna worriedly watches through the hospital window, Balto approaches and attempts to flirt, but Jenna is too distressed to be receptive. Balto and Jenna enter the underfloor area of the hospital and watch the doctor give the diagnosis — Rosy (and the other children) has diphtheria, and the doctor has run out of antitoxin. An urgent request for medicine is transmitted, but sea and air routes fail and the closest rail line only goes to Nenana.

It is decided that a sled team will cover the last stretch. A race is held to determine the team members. Balto enters, and easily wins. However, he is disqualified when his heritage is revealed. That night, the team (led by Steele) sets out to Nenana and picks up the medicine; however they get lost on the way back and knock out the musher. The team now has no way home. Read more

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