ALPHA & OMEGA DIRECTOR: Anthony Bell,Ben Gluck Voices of: Justin Long,Hayden Panettiere,Dennis Hopper,Danny Glover,Christina Ricci rating: **1/2 Two clans swear to marry their respective offspring to each other while the kids concerned are still in their infancy. The kids grow up and fall in love with partners below their social strata. There is some huffing and puffing,claws are drawn but what do you know it turns out all right. Who says this cant happen to wolves? Dont they have loving patriarchs at the head of unquestioning packs? Thats the alpha and omega of the story. But in the middle,this film manages to be more,with its 3-D animation that jumps out of the screen and its nicely voiced characters,who breathe warmth into an animal that is the cold,ferocious villain in many a story. The film even lingers surprisingly on the fact that wolves survive by eating other animals (a messy fact that films of this nature generally steer clear of),even flies on bones when food is scarce,and by repopulating (a joke thats done to death). However,it turns around these facts to portray them as loving as any other animal to spring out of a Disney factory. The wolves howling at the moon,for example,acquires a romantic touch,something that they do with partners on date nights by moonlight. Long and Panettiere,and Ricci and Chris Carmack,voice the two star-crossed couples. While the former two,being the protagonists,are expected to end up rubbing noses together,its nice that the film doesnt forget the other couple,starkly unheroic as compared to the first one but not any less suited for each other. The quintessential sidekicks providing the laughs,a British duck and a French Canadian goose,are around for just the right amount of time going away before they overstay their welcome.
