Monday, February 18, 2013

Alpha and Omega (2010)



Number Rolled: 1
Movie Name/Year: Alpha and Omega (2010)
Genre: Children and Family Movie
Length: 87 minutes
Rating: PG
Director: Anthony Bell, Ben Gluck
Writer: Chris Denk, Ben Gluck, Steve Moore
Actors: Justin Long, Hayden Panettiere, Dennis Hopper, Danny Glover, Larry Miller, Eric Price, Vicki Lewis, Christina Ricci, Chris Carmack, Brian Donovan, Kevin Sussman, Maya Kay, Christine Lakin

This animated children’s movie is about an Omega wolf named Humphrey and his long developed crush on an Alpha wolf named Kate. It’s a basic Romeo and Juliet recipe made PG by the target audience being children.

Humphrey sees no reason why he can’t be with Kate and continues to put himself in her line of sight. After a moment where he has particularly invaded her life a bit too far, they are sleep-darted by a random human and brought to another park where they are supposed to “repopulate.” Of course, even if that weren’t the issue, the fact that they were taken on the very night Kate learns of her fate to be in an arranged marriage with another Alpha, to unite the packs, heightens the importance of getting back. If she doesn’t return, the packs will go to war.

This film got trashed. I’ll tell you why. Number one, the animation wasn’t exactly perfect. The wolves looked a little odd, as did the background. That’s an issue I find to be valid. However, it was also trashed because it was a children’s movie being judged by adults and because it’s a recipe film. I’ve made this argument before, but I’ll say it again. Not all recipe movies are instantly bad. I use a recipe to make cheesecake and it still comes out good. However, there are thousands of recipes – different recipes – to make cheesecake. I’ll never outright say a movie sucked just because it was a recipe. I don’t think anyone should.

The components in this particular recipe movie weren’t bad. The wolven mother of Kate, I’ve decided, was placed in this movie specifically to make the parents of the children laugh. I know a few people that she reminded me of in real life, and they’re all very close friends.

Story-wise, Alpha and Omega had a slow start but it picked up. I had a big problem getting into the movie in the beginning. Especially after they did a time jump without any real notice about what they were doing. It was made more difficult to notice because the art, the animation, of the wolves didn’t change. So you had to rely on the script specifically to know that you were going from watching wolf-children to watching wolf-young-adults. It irked me a little bit.

My final issue isn’t really an issue, it’s more of a warning. Parents who watch this movie with their children should be prepared to answer the question, “Where do babies come from?” There’s nothing sexually graphic, but there are several references to mating and the creating “little wolves.” Also, there are some graphically mentioned ideas of violence which, even coming from an animated and slightly off wolf, made me stare at the screen in awe. Do with this information what you will.

Overall Opinion – 3/5

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