Alpha and Omega

admin | October 19, 2010 | Comments (2)

DIR: Anthony Bell, Ben Gluck • WRI: Chris Denk, Steve Moore • PRO: Ken Katsumoto, Steve Moore, Richard Rich, • ED: Scott Anderson • DES: Donald Graham Burt • CAST: Dennis Hopper, Chris Carmack, Justin Long, Hayden Panettiere, Christina Ricci

Kate and Humphrey are wolves. She’s an Alpha, he’s an Omega. Alphas rule the pack and do all the hunting and fighting. Omegas do something else. Whenever tensions run high they burst in to keep the peace and calm everyone down with a comedy routine. It’s kind of like if the Keystone Cops were real police (no satirical comments please). Kate and Humphrey are childhood (puphood?) sweethearts, but Alphas and Omegas may never mate. On top of that Kate is arranged to marry Garth, a wolf from another pack, in order to cement an alliance between their two packs. So that covers most of the ways lovers can be star-crossed. But they don’t stay that way for long when they are thrown together in a voyage across North America.

There are two things in movies that are guaranteed to make my spine coil in embarrassment. One is when actors have to howl, the other is watching four-legged animals doing a two-step. Alpha and Omega has plenty of both, but the howling at least is justified. It’s used as a kid-friendly euphemism for sex and provides a few laughs for those audience members old enough to follow the reference to its logical conclusion. Apart from that, most of what’s on offer here is pretty stale stuff by now. A caribou stampede has been pilfered shamelessly from The Lion King and is no more exciting for being in 3D. Similarly the voice acting, while not bad, is pretty nondescript. It is famously Dennis Hopper’s last movie, but only good old Justin Long really stands out. There’s the obligatory collection of comedy sidekicks. One of Humphrey’s Omega buddies is, of course, fat. How does that work? If the Alphas outrank the Omegas how does an Omega get more food than the others? That’s not how I thought pack structure worked. Has David Attenborough been lying to me all this time? Or maybe it’s just glandular.

The one other thing that struck me as fresh was the relationship that develops between Garth and Kate’s sister Lily, voiced by Christina Ricci. It’s very nicely done and in a movie that takes no chances it took me by surprise. To be fair Alpha and Omega is by no means a bad film. It’s likeable enough and does everything that’s expected of it. Given the high standard of children’s entertainment out there, in books, TV, and movies I don’t think it’s exactly going to thrill younger viewers, but it’ll certainly keep them happily occupied for 88 minutes.

Geoff McEvoy

Rated G (see IFCO website for details)
Alpha and Omega is released on 20th October 2010

Alpha and Omega – Official Website