Movie Thoughts: Alpha and Omega (2010)

• Released: September 8 2010
• Directed by: Anthony Bell, Ben Gluck
• Running time: 1 h 30 min
• Rating 1.5/5

Synopsis

Two wolves very much unlike one another are trapped and released many miles away from their homeland, and must find a way to get back in time before a war breaks out. 

My Thoughts

Two Movie Thoughts in one day? Yeah I guess? I watched the hair model wolf movie today so why not do one on it. Let’s dive into Alpha and Omega while it’s still fresh in my mind.

This movie suffer from one major flaw: the incredible blandness. It’s very by-the-numbers and doesn’t really take any risks. You know pretty much what’s going to happen on your first watch. Of course they get to be together, of course there’s some reason why the packs unite anyways (the marriage between Lily and Garth). Just…don’t expect any twists that surprise you.

The animation is…quite bad-ish. The visuals in general are, asides from being, again, bland, also lacking. The animation itself varies from painfully average at the talking points to bad in some of the action scenes. There’s also a few awkward expressions (though the odd 3D models can be blamed for that partially, too) and stuff. Putting aside how everything moves, even the backgrounds are really not that great. They feel rather empty sometimes. Not horribly empty, but still like more could be added to them. The visuals are just very boring and nothing really stand out as interesting.

The models of our characters aren’t too pleasing to the eyes, either. Instead of looking like actual wolves they look more like some weird canine hybrids that for whatever reason have fox tails, stilt legs, human hair and barely any lower jaws to speak of whatsoever. They just really don’t resemble wolves asides from the fact that they howl and stuff. I’ve seen some people call the models uncanny valley, and, while I don’t quite feel that they are, they still aren’t nice to look at, either. I really wish they’d have given these wolves a redesign. Their anatomy is just weird.

One of the things that aren’t horrible is the soundtrack. It’s not too great and doesn’t really stand out much aside from the Love Train one, I think, but it’s not too hard on the ears.

The characters are very cookie-cutter, too. Humphrey takes hardly anything serious and jokes a lot. Kate is his opposite. Lilly is shy and likes to make others laugh. Garth seems very certain, but is deep down more self-conscious of himself. They’re mostly just very one-note and only go through bare-bones character development. Of course Kate is going to fall in love with Humphrey by the ending. Of course Humphrey isn’t going to run away and leave his homepack. Of course Kate is still alive by the end despite being knocked in the head by a fucking caribou hoof. It’s just, much like the story, bland and precisely what you expect.

I’m also kinda bothered by the amount of innuendos in this movie. Like…was it really necessary even? No. Just keep your raunchy jokes outside of a kids movie, will you? The wolves are also weirdly “sexualized” at one point, where they are practically showed off as if they’re really hot as they do the sexy hair wave thing with their weird human hair. Just…no.

The jokes are just not funny. Of course we need a fat comic relief who likes to eat. Of course we need butt jokes. Of course we need inappropriate jokes. Why not. It’s a bad movie anyways, might as well add to it by having these attempts at humor.

And of course we have another huge problem that shows in the title itself even: the alpha and omega wolf ranking theory has been long-debunked by the guy who popularized itself back in 1999. I’m just really sick of still seeing it in wolf related media, when it’s been 20 years (11 when this movie came out) now since it was debunked, but people still keep using it. Why? I really wouldn’t know. One of my guesses is that it’s attractive to write stories around, but it’s really just now how wolves should be represented anymore, unless you decide to go full-out fictional in a fantasy world or something. But this movie is about a real place that has real wolves, so it just feels like it doesn’t belong.

Alpha and Omega is a mostly bland as fuck movie, and most things about it that do stand out (character design, animation, etc.) don’t stand out positively. It’s just really forgettable aside from maybe one or two characters or music pieces.

Just a movie I wouldn’t recommend to anyone, even if they like wolves or animation. But at least there’s no Kate & Humphrey pups in this one.