Movie Thoughts: Alpha and Omega 5: Family Vacation (2015)

• Released: August 4 2015
• Directed by: Kyung-Duk Kim, Richard Rich
• Running time: 45 min
• Rating 0.5/5

Synopsis

Kate, Humphrey and the pups go on vacation, only to end up pursued by hunters.

My Thoughts

Groooaaaaaaannnnn. Why am I doing this to myself again? They just seem to get worse and worse with each installment safe. So, yeah, have fun watching me suffer. This is the fifth Alpha and Omega, Family Vacation.

So, yeah. Horrible. The story is just bare bones, nearly nothing. It’s just them trying to get somewhere and encountering one (1) threat on the way. It would’ve maybe been more interesting to see various obstacles, but we only have one: the trappers that keep returning. It’s also really annoying that this was also already used as a plot point in the first movie. The characters even seem to be aware that they’re recycling plot threads, as Humphrey says “we’re back to that?” in regards to the trappers.

The voice acting? Bland as shit. Nothing that stands out, but not something notable either. Just…eh.

The animation is bad still. Maybe not as bad as in the third movie, which is animated the absolute worst, but still, pretty damn bad. Also, really, really cheap.

You know those flashbacks I brought up earlier? Yep, they’re literally just recycling old scenes from the previous movies with the new actors dubbing over them. Why? Because this has the budget of a bread stick or something. To stretch time, probably, too, because the rest of the story really doesn’t fill the running time.

The characters were once more reduced to their most basic. Kate and Humphrey are the overprotective parents, Brent fears birds (despite that plot thread being rounded up in movie 2, but continuity does not exist with these movies), the birds play golf, the pups want only one thing, the porcupines are just annoying and don’t even have a purpose for this thing, it’s just very bad. It also suffers from what I call Ice Age-syndrome, where it has way too many major characters in order for it to be focused still. We don’t just have Kate, Humphrey and the pups, we also have Marcel, Paddie, Freida and Fran, Agnes, Brent, Fleet, three humans, two stranger wolves (who are also just re-used models of Reba and Janice. They didn’t even bother to change the colors this time. They’re getting lazier and lazier each fucking movie)… It’s just too much for this. Just reduce these characters.

It’s also really, really hard to take this movie seriously. The trappers are so pathetic that it would be laughable if this movie was actually funny. It just doesn’t work to have your main villains be this dumb for comedic reasons, which then we’re also supposed to take seriously as the main thread to our main characters.

Speaking of tone… The jokes in this are… worse. I know the last few Alpha and Omega movies had horrible inappropriate and innuendos, but it’s even worse here. Jokes about urine, fecal matter, fat, etc…. It’s fucking disgusting. I hope that whoever wrote this had a serious wake-up call because this is fucking abysmal.

The visuals aside from the animation are still bad. And recycled. The models that we saw in the first movie look the same but worse (which gets kinda jarring after seeing the flashbacks to the original Alpha and Omega in this film). The lighting and use of color is bland as fuck, like with the other sequels. The backgrounds just recycled. We’re supposed to see unique and new locations here, but instead it’s so incredibly obvious that we’re just recycling whatever files of the first movie they had, though worse. The first movie at least had better color direction, but this is just worthless.

And finally, for the pacing, it’s a total rush. The endless flashbacks really don’t do the movie any favors, instead making the pacing feel really odd and askew. While the rest goes too fast, the flashbacks suddenly drag it out and bring the plot to a halt for no reason. They do not have a reason to exist. Remove these fuckers. Pleeeeeaaaasssseeeeee.

This is a fucking abysmal movie. I wish I never laid eyes on it. I hate myself. Save me. But, in all seriousness, this is definitely one of the worst if not the worst Alpha and Omega movie I’ve seen so far. Bad visuals, the villains feel like a joke, the pacing hardly even exists, there’s disgusting gross-out humor that’s not even funny… Ugh.

Honestly, I was having a hard time deciding whether this one or Great Wolf Games was the worst Alpha and Omega movie this far, and, honestly, for as fucking horrible that movie was (and the animation is still obviously the very worst), it still had a more coherent plot and pacing, more defined character goals and a villain that we’re able not supposed to laugh at. So, yeah, this one is even worse. I legit cannot believe this one is worse. But it’s the case. If you happened to hate yourself enough to subject yourself to Great Wolf Games, I’m going to have to put you to a halt over here. Do not proceed. You will regret it.