alpha & omega: a star crossed (wolf) love story...

The animated movie Alpha and Omega is basically the classic Romeo and Juliet story. Except it’s a story

about animated wolves. In 3-D. And who howl at the moon in 80s soft pop style  that made me cringe. But other than that, the story is your plain old-fashioned love story.

And how can a story about true love really go all that wrong? (Um, don’t answer this…)

My kids loved it.

Which I suppose is the point in a children’s animated movie.

Basically, Kate and Humphrey are not allowed to love each other, though they have since they were pups, because Kate is an alpha dog and Humphrey merely an omega. You know the story… They try to move on, find themselves in a

predicament where they’re forced together and then prove to themeselves and the world that they belong together. Happy ending.

The animation was cute and the 3D aspect seemed seamless. I barely noticed I had my glasses on at all. And neither did the kids, which is quite a feat when pre-schoolers are faced with cool looking glasses that don’t fit very well on

their faces.

Kate and Humphrey were lovable enough characters, though the predicament that forces them together centers around them being shot with tranquilizers and then relocated to another national park where the intention is that they repopulate.

“Mommy, what does repopulate mean?” Naomi asked me later. “And why did those wolves fall asleep when they got shot?”

Luckily, I did not have to explain species repopulation to my four year old, a concept that seems way too vivid when you’re talking about cute wolves that dress up and sing. Thankfully, she’d already moved on to pretending to be a

wolf herself and howling Miley Cyrus style to her pack of stuffed animals in her room.

In the end, it may not have been the hit of the year with the parents, but the kids loved it, which is the point of an afternoon at the movies.

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