Watch Balto III: Wings of Change For Free

hyped garbage

Expected more

Best movie ever!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Over all, Balto: Wings of Change is an improvement over the story of its predecessor, Wolf Quest. It sadly introduces a couple of new characters who are either annoying or pointless. The two highlights of the second sequel to 1995's Balto are the story and the musical score. The story takes a little time to get going, but then it captures the heart of the original story. Balto has a pup, Kodi, who is proud of delivering the US Mail, but feels threatened by the new and more effective air mail delivery. He and the other sleigh dogs compete against the plane to determine who is superior. When the plain crashes down, Kodi is torn between seeing the pilot as his enemy or human who needs help. It is also a better story than its predecessor. Adam Berry did a good job scoring an atmospheric soundtrack. The songs were not especially memorable and one time the music did not match the mood of what was happening, but those are minor things. The CG animation used stuck out at times and some of the character designs were a little flat, but story triumphs over visuals. What brings this installment down is the new character, Stella. She is rather pointless. The side plot about her and Boris is pretty annoying and drags out the real story. The moose characters are also pretty lame. Muk and Luk have a little more to do in this movie and that is an improvement over their pointlessness in Wolf Quest. Over all, Wings of Change has improved where it should have improved. It is a serviceable sequel without reaching the heights of the beautiful first movie.

It is not as good as the first film, which I just love. But it is a notch above the second film, which I personally didn't think was that bad, just the weakest of the three. There are some things that were lacking. The animation is rather rough-around-the-edges, more in the character designs than in the backgrounds and graphics. There are some scenes also detailed in another review that do feel a little random and feel little more than filler. And I really disliked the character of Stella, she was annoying and served no real purpose to the story. However, apart from Stella's song, which I have always found ear-gratingly-bad, the songs are really quite nice especially the credits song. The soundtrack has that mysterious whimsy that fits wonderfully, and the dialogue is thought-provoking and means well. There are also improvements over Wolf Quest, there is a much more coherent story, there is more of the first movie's feel here and Kodi is a much more likable character than Aleu. Other than Stella the characters are great. The voice acting, while not as good as any of that of the first film, is decent. Sean Astin is great as Kodi, and as Balto, while not sounding entirely like Kevin Bacon, Maurice LaMarche again shows what a superb voice actor he is. Jodi Benson is appropriately sympathetic as Jenna, and Keith Carradine brings a certain gruffness to Duke. All in all, not a bad sequel if not on the same level as the original Balto. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Three years after that despicable abomination Balto 2: Wolf Quest, Universal released Balto 3: Wings of Change. I admit it's not right up there with the first movie, it has it's flaws, there's a lot about that I would have loved to change but it's a much better installment to the series than Wolf Quest.Unlike Wolf Quest (how I hate that film!) the story to Wings of Change is straight forward and easy to follow: Balto's son, Kodi (voiced by Sean Astin from Lord of the Rings) is part of the Nome mail delivery service. However, Kodi's job- as well as the other dogs on the team- is in danger of losing their jobs with the arrival of new technology. That is, a bush plane has arrived in Nome and may very well be the new mail delivery service. Balto is fascinated by the plane and quickly befriends the pilot, Duke. Soon a race is organized between the dog-sled team and the plane to see who can deliver the mail to the neighbouring town and back the fastest. Along the way back to Nome, Duke's crashes and is lost in the wild. The dog-sled team wins the race, much to Kodi's delight, but Balto knows that something must of happened to Duke and sets out to find him. Meanwhile, in a subplot Boris falls in love with a she-goose, Stella. Stella wants to fly with Boris, but Boris, even though he's a bird, has a secret fear of heights and hates flying.The good points of Balto: Wings of Change are: a straight forward story as I said before, unlike Wolf Quest which was all over the place and had too many pointless subplots which went nowhere. Balto is a better character this time around; he doesn't spend most of the movie sleeping and being a coward (here's looking at you again, Wolf Quest!). Kodi is also another highlight. Unlike that nuclear bomb of a character, Aleu, Kodi is actually likable and doesn't whine about being part wolf. Also, Sean Astin does a great job voicing Kodi; he actually sounds like a teenager (or yearling in dog years) unlike Aleu who sounds like an angry five year old on helium, despite also being a yearling.The bad points of Balto Wings of Change are: The animation, although compared to Wolf Quest is far better, is a pretty crudely done for one thing. There's also still songs in the movie though there's three and a half, so that's not too bad. The song "Everything Flies" which plays over the opening and ending credits is actually pretty good, it's not brilliant, but it's not bad either. "Come on Up and Fly", on the other hand is just God awful; it doesn't help matters that it's sung by Stella, the absolute worst character in the movie, and that the whole sequence that goes with the song is practically a striptease with a goose. It's painful to listen to and painful to watch. Jenna's "You Don't Have to Be a Hero" isn't a bad song; it was just unfortunate that they happened to show clips and some extra film of Wolf Quest which suddenly brought back horrible flashbacks. Still if you skip past "Come on Up and Fly" and "You Don't have to be a Hero" (or just close your eyes till the song is over), you'll have a much more enjoyable experience. Another bad point to Wings of Change is that there happen to be some very random scenes which have nothing to do with anything and feel like they were tacked on to make the movie that little bit longer. Three examples of this is when Jenna and some other dogs are at the race and waiting for dog-sled team and the plane to come back; they hear a loud noise and think it's the plane but it turns out it's the saw mill they're standing next to. Example number two is when a quick fade in of the plane crash shows up on screen, but then fade out all of a sudden; it's as if the people who made this movie originally planed a scene there, but changed their minds at the last minute. Number three is when Balto, Muk, Luk and Stella find the crashed plane but are suddenly ambushed by a moose who keeps on and on saying "You talking' me?" a la Taxi Driver. The moose then suddenly gets into a fight with another conveniently placed moose. However, the absolute worst part of Balto: Wings of Change is the character Stella. I'm dead serious they gave her a wavy hair (feather?) style, a beauty mark on her face and even deep cleavage and is so sexual you would of thought she was zapped out of some furry porno.Even though it's swimming in all sorts of flaws (but not a disaster from start to end like you know who!), I would honestly have to say that Balto: Wings of Change is pretty damn good for a straight to video sequel and a good installment to the series.Final score: 7/10

OK, the plot is a bit cheesy and predictable. Most of all, it is so simple that it needs a secondary story to back it up, that being a love story for the goose. But it's way better than Wolf Quest and it approaches the quality of the original Balto. The animation is also better, a slight change in the way things and people are drawn is obvious. All in all a good sequel, but enough with Balto. Leave the poor dog alone. Let us see, in the first movie he fought the lead dog and won. In the second Balto he fought a lead wolf and won. Now he takes on a plane, and he wins. Balto does rime with Rambo, doesn't it? :)In conclusion, I would rather watch Balto I and then Balto III. Balto II is not worth watching and the third part is best connected with the first like Highlander...