Since this is the last Kids’ Film Friday of the year, and I am at home with my nieces, I was intending to watch something with them. Unfortunately, they have the attention spans of a particularly distracted goldfish (and they’re in bed by six) so I had to improvise. Shame though; it might have been fun to get the perspective of a two-year-old. Read More
There’s a voice, keeps on calling me. Down the road, that’s where I’ll always be. Every stop I make, I make a new friend. Can’t stay for long; just turn around and I’m gone again.
The end of the year is fast approaching, and after today I only have to watch three more kids’ movies.
I typed half of this review with a Pringles tube stuck on the end of my arm. Yes, I’m that guy.
A part of me is really regretting this Kid’s Film Friday idea. Thankfully there are only five left. Holy moly! Only five (and a bit) weeks left in the year?!
Sometimes I am really concerned about the level of intelligence that the makers of films for children assume of their audience.
Alpha and Omega
From Easy Rider to this?
Two wolves from a pack living in Jasper National Park, Canada are captured and taken to Idaho to repopulate a park there. Kate is an alpha, destined to become the leader of the Jasper pack, while Humphrey is an omega. Think princess and stable-boy. Anyway, Kate and Humphrey decide to make their way back to Jasper to rejoin their pack and halt a brewing invasion from a rival pack. Will they fall in love on the way? Does anyone care? Did this really have to be Dennis Hopper’s last movie?
I don’t enjoy being mean about the films I watch. Okay, sometimes I do, but occasionally I feel like I’m shooting fish in a barrel. Tranquilised fish, in a really shallow and well-stocked barrel. With a rocket launcher.
This is not a good film. The animation is of a standard that would disappoint me in a Saturday morning cartoon. The story is trite and predictable with nothing new to say about class struggles or forbidden love. The actors – including Hayden Panettiere as Kate and Justin Long as Humphrey – don’t seem to be enjoying themselves, with the possible exception of Larry Miller as a French-Canadian, golf-playing goose named Marcel (yes, really). Danny Glover and Dennis Hopper both just sound bored as the rival pack leaders, Winston and Tony.
Setting aside for a moment that he can manipulate his feathers to grasp a golf club, Marcel also has a caddy. Named Paddy. That’s what we’re dealing with here.
If you have any five-year-olds at a loose end, then they might find something to keep them entertained here, but I wouldn’t recommend it for much else.
Never again will I allow Justin from Today I Watched a Movie to have any input whatsoever into my film choice. I should have learned my lesson after The Green Hornet, but no. He’s doing this on purpose; there’s no other explanation.
It’s a good thing we’re getting near the end of the year, because my unnamed movie streaming services have turned out to have pretty slim pickings when it comes to kids films that are even remotely watchable for anyone with a mental age higher than 3. Luckily though, today’s choice doesn’t fall into that category.
After last week’s two excellent examples, I’m hoping for another winner for Kids’ Film Friday. Don’t let me down, Dreamworks…
And Fridays are looking up again. After a few lean weeks, we are back with a stone classic, and deserved Oscar winner.
Five Word Movie Reviews 