8.0 out of 10
In my childhood, I had known of a little movie called Balto and how it told the story of a sled dog who became famous for some reason and it had to do with running serum to save children who were really sick. I honestly had no clue of what happened back in the 1925 serum run across Alaska to Nome, but I knew that Balto had a significant meaning to kids through the 1995 animated film. Fast forward to 2017, I now watch a review of Balto from The Nostalgia Critic / Doug Walker. In the review he does his usual deal of taking a deeper look into acclaimed films and critique them for their flaws and the biggest flaw he finds that interests me the most is that Balto only lead the last leg of serum run and the actual lead sled dog who ran through the majority of the run was a huskie named Togo and they were both owned by man known as Leonhard Seppala. Seppala and his dog sled team (with Togo at the lead) ran a total of 260 miles out of 674 while Balto and his musher Gunnar Kaasen only ran about 55 miles in which the latter end up getting all of the credit by the media and general public. I was shocked that something like this happened after a daring run to save children from a growing epidemic but I now appreciate the efforts made and commend Togo and Seppala for running the most miles and I thank the Disney+ film, Togo, for helping me understand what really happened back in 1925.
Togo tells the story of Leonhard Seppala and his titular dog as they are tasked with retrieving a transport of diphtheria antitoxin to help stop the epidemic in Nome. Throughout the film, you see flashbacks of how Seppala came to bond with Togo through sledding and how essential their bond becomes to help get the serum safely to Nome. I really enjoyed this movie, mainly because of Willem Dafoe and the dog who plays Togo (Diesel). What the filmmakers succeeded on was to convince me that they had a huge bond that would last and how striving they are to get the serum to its destination. I also enjoyed Mark Isham’s score, particularly during the scene where Seppala uses Togo as lead dog during a training exercise for his other dogs, a scene that precedes another where Seppala tries to give away Togo as he originally considered him to be a runt that would be problematic. The movie makes the wise decision of going back and forth between the serum run and when Seppala begins to love Togo as a sled dog/friend. This movie did its job and made me appreciate the efforts that everyone took in 1925 to get the serum over to Nome and also succeeded in making me furious with the media for not fully recognizing that Togo was the true hero, not Balto, but that’s going off on a tangent. I also really liked the performance of Constance Seppala, played by Julianne Nicholson, she had a good supporting role and was a good voice of reason for her husband Leonhard when he initially dislikes Togo as a puppy. Other notable things are the sets and locations, it looks good for a Disney+ film.
Togo is worth a watch if you like dogs and want to see a good movie about bonding with a pet, it’s also worth it to see a quick rundown of the The Serum Run as well. Togo is a nice uplifting film for viewers of Disney+.
