Alpha and Omega 2 Review

I still defend the animated movie Alpha and Omega as a decent enough family film. There was talk of a sequel, but that just turned into a 45-minute direct-to-DVD feature released later than anticipated. Almost none of the original voice actors came back, and after seeing this I can't really blame them. They were off to such a good start, but there seemed to be hardly any logical motivation for the rogue wolves' kidnapping of Runt (other than to piss off the grandparents - not even Kate and Humphrey - for reasons that are unexplored). For being rebranded as a holiday special, there wasn't any snow in it until the very end - and in Canada that shouldn't have happened. The first movie had more snow in it, and it wasn't centered around the holidays. The story came to an abrupt end as Humphrey, Kate, and the pups take shelter from the cold in the home of the guy who'd tried to shoot at them in the first movie, as he'd had a holiday change of heart. That's it. No reuniting with the rest of the pack after the storm, no going back home which they could clearly see by way of Runt climbing trees and looking around, nothing. After reading the back of the case I wasn't expecting much from this, and it still disappointed me. Not only that, but they are planning to produce two more of these things - a story about the pup games and a Halloween special (even though the Christmas one was released in October). This movie did not make me feel emotionally invested in the characters whatsoever.

The other thing of note on the DVD was an ad for another of the new CGI Care Bears movies, this time centered around a new CB-in-training named Wonderheart. She wonders what her tummy symbol means (so she's like a CMC but with her symbol already and having to figure it out in reverse?), and she wants to live up to the reputation of her uncle Tenderheart (OK when did these guys mate and with whom? I don't understand where they come from or their relationships to one another). And somehow there's been a Santa-like Bear voiced by Grandpa Shige from Kekkaishi, and Beastly is now his own villain. I just don't know how to process that.