Alpha And Omega (2010 , PG)

I guess I haven't reviewed a lot of family films so far.  This one is a CG animated feature about a pack of wolves in a Canadian wildlife park.  The title of the film refers to the delineation between the alpha wolves (the hunters and warriors, more physically strong and agile) and the omega wolves (the peacemakers who remind the rest of the pack to play, more clever and creative).  Do I detect some social commentary?  The main character  Humphrey (voiced by Justin Long, who you might know from Dodgeball or Jeepers Creepers) is an omega male and he was puppy-hood friends with Kate (voiced by Hayden Panettiere, the cheerleader from Heroes) the alpha female daughter of the pack leader Winston (voiced by Danny Glover from Lethal Weapon).  Winston tries to remind a young Humphrey that "alphas and omegas don't... uh..." (he doesn't want to discuss mating with the impressionable young cub, nor do they use such harsh language as "mate" or "reproduce" in the film, though they do say "repopulate" at one point), which I found clever and amusing.  Winston's other daughter is an omega female Lilly (voiced by Cristina Ricci, also from Black Snake Moan and The Adams Family) showing that the castes are determined by individual proficiency rather than lineage, which I feel does add a sense of legitimacy to the existence of the roles if not the fraternization rules.

There are a lot of big name actors in the film, but the only one I recognized prior to the rolling credits was Dennis Hopper (mentioned more thoroughly below).  The movie was full of one-liners and sight gags which would be amusing to a small child but dumb to an adult, but there were a few gags that still made me chuckle.  There was one song and dance sequence and it wasn't all that great.  By "song" I mean howling at the moon apparently to some tune, and by "dance" I mean wolves prancing around on their hind legs in a kind of creepy-looking fashion.  The animation itself was not bad, but I thought it was kind of weird that they used semi-human-looking hairstyles to help differentiate between different wolves and between the genders; the different facial shapes and fur colors were sufficient.  The plot also included a rivalry with the wolf pack across the park (the leader of that pack was voiced by Dennis Hopper, also from Waterworld and Easy Rider, who passed away shortly after the making of this movie [the end of the film includes a dedication to him]).  With the pack politics and caste system, this movie is kind of a cross between Aladdin and The Lion King (but without a genie or murdering uncle).  I found almost all of the characters to be likable and there was a pretty positive tone, but it lacked the certain magic that you'll find in the really good animated features... so if you use this to follow up a Disney marathon of The Little Mermaid, Beauty And The Beast, and the aforementioned Aladdin and Lion King, you'll be sorely disappointed.  But if taken on its own and with properly managed expectations, it's an enjoyable if merely mediocre movie.  And I want to make clear, if there is not one or more children sitting next to you, there are other movies you should be watching.