ANI-MOVIES: *Alpha And Omega

Open Season screenwriter Steve Moore along with Christopher Denk started the franchise of 8 movies that all began with a single slightly successful box office release of Alpha And Omega in 2010 that was done by Crest Animation who some might remember from producing The Swan Princess films. Crest's streak didn't go on for long as the latter half of the Alpha And Omega movies were completed by Splash Entertainment because Crest folded in 2013 after their other animated project Norm Of The North bombed in theaters which ironically spawned a series of made-for-video sequels headed by Assemblage Entertainment who also drove that franchise into the ground. Lionsgate distributed all the Alpha And Omega films, but the original directed by former Simpsons animator Anthony Bell and Ben Gluck who had directed of few sequels to Disney films both had trouble configuring how to translate the original 2D designs for this 3D production. The first movie had big stars like Justin Long, Danny Glover, Christina Ricci, and Dennis Hopper in one of his final roles, even though none of them return to the video sequels and were replaced by anime voice actors Benjamin Dikson and Kate Higgins. Whether or not the first movie was originally intended to start a franchise like an animated TV series or multiple sequels or not is a pretty wavy bet.

Set in Canada, a pack of wolves have separated from a rival pack whose leaders plan to unite with a marriage with their firstborns, one of which is Kate, an alpha wolf. A promising omega wolf named Humphrey has had his eye on Kate for some time, and the two of them happen to get tranked by rangers who send them both to a park in Idaho to repopulate. Despite Humphrey's prospects looking up, Kate wants to get back to their home to prevent a turf war between the packs. Luckily, the get help from some golf-obsessed birds who help them return after hitching rides on a camper and then a train. The would-be couple make it back just in time to stop the packs from eating each other, even though there was still an extra 20 minutes left in the film. Kate realizes that she loves Humphrey and they manage to save the heads of each pack after a caribou stampede nearly kills them off like Mufasa, so they become mates and plan to repopulate an entire box set of sequels.

For one thing, the concept of alpha and omega wolves doesn't actually exist, so the entire concept behind the actual title is completely stupid. For a CGI movie, the animation is only a little above average at least for a theatrical release, although this feature still doesn't really anything all that significant. If the story had more of the two leads learning to love each other on their trip back home then it might have fared better, but the story keeps cutting to a completely different wolf couple getting together and the pointless antics of the bird golfers that pad out the plot to a definitive humdrum. This movie was a tedious watch and doesn't contain much anything eventful, which makes you wonder how this went on to colonize an entire cinematic universe.