Yeah, that music article sure isn’t coming. Time for another film review! Of course, a spoiler warning goes here for those who haven’t seen Alpha and Omega and would like to.
This film actually has a really good story. For all the negative reviews I have read and heard about this film, it can’t have been about the writing. The growth of Kate and Humphrey was natural, both as characters independently, and their relationship. The conflicts felt pretty believable.
I was a bit surprised that the pack leaders were so quick to throw away the law that alphas can’t mate with omegas. Then again, after watching Humphrey save his daughter from a caribou stampede, I can also see why he was quick to change his mind! And I was happy to see Garth find someone he actually connects with, since it surely wasn’t going to be Kate. His relationship with Lilly was actually cute and I was so happy for them being able to be together at the end!
The animation was alright, but it hit a pet peeve of mine that was really annoying at times. These are meant to be feral wolves, but they kept getting on their hind legs and acting anthro. I don’t mind anthro animals – I’ve enjoyed Bluey, TMNT, Mating Season, to name a few – but I want consistency. I sat down to watch feral wolves, and I expect to watch feral wolves. They’re quadrupeds! They cannot properly dance like that without assistance!
Other random thoughts:
- The opening and closing view of the clouds reminded me a LOT of the Toy Story franchise. That had to be intentional, right?
- Eve is the best character. I absolutely adored her, lol. Nothing quite like a protective canine mum. I’d absolutely act the same way!
- The howling sequences seem a bit… odd, but I “got” it. Since we can understand the wolves’ speech, we can also understand their howling as song. When you think about it like that, it makes a bit more sense. It doesn’t make it any less over-the-top, but it at least explains it.
Also, I wrote down in my notes – TWICE – “Kate went to Dolly’s school of parkour”; first towards the beginning, and again when they were being chased by the bears.
Overall, this gets a 3/5. It would have gotten a 4/5 if the wolves stayed on their bloody four paws the whole way through. Going bipedal just for the sake of looking good or a joke is a serious distraction and detraction from what could have been a very good film.
But I still don’t understand the Internet’s nearly-unanimous vitriol for this film. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting from that.