Cute and fuzzy is the best way to describe this 88-minute, PG-rated animated feature length film. It’s much like one of the Walt Disney animated films that made that movie company famous. It’s about life in a wolf pack. One fun-loving wolf named Humphrey whose voice isprovided by Justin Long, enjoys life and spends most of his time with his buddies playing and sliding down the mountain sides in a hollowed out tree trunk. They get very good at that sport and could probably give human Bobsled racers a run for their money.
Humphrey has his eye on a young female wolf named Kate whose voice is provided by Hayden Panettiere. Kate is one of the daughters of the leader of the pack. As a member of the leadership class she is an Alpha Wolf. Humphrey is an Omega class member. They are allowed to be friends, but cannot mate or howl at the moon together.
Circumstances work out that both Humphrey and Kate are tranquilized by park rangers and packed up and sent north in order to repopulate the wolf population in that Canadian location. Their struggle to return to their home territory and the characters they meet along the way are what constitutes the story. In the meantime, Kate’s sister wolf Lily, voiced by Christina Ricci falls in love with Garth, voiced by Christ Carmack, the Alpha son of the Eastern Wolves leader. Their marriage allows Kate to avoid marrying Garth for political reasons and instead Kate can howl at the moon and make music with Humphrey.
Basically, this is the story of two members of different social classes finding love in spite of the pressures of society. The film is suited for all kids despite its PG-Rating. It’s a musical /comedy/ family/adventure/animated feature.
The movie is dedicated to the late actor Dennis Hopper who was the voice of Tony in the story. Danny Glover provided the voice for Winston and Larry Miller was the voice of Marcel. The entire voice-over cast does a good job under the direction of Anthony Bell and Ben Gluck with the screenplay provided by Chris Denk and Steve Moore.
The screen credits at the movie’s end were very enlightening. The film was a joint production of Lion’s Gate and Crest Animation Productions. Half the individual credits seemed to be English or American names and half seemed to be Indian or Chinese names from Mumbai, India. While the two totally different cultures working on the film is not at all evident, it appears that Hollywood is also outsourcing jobs and work on American films to the much larger film producing center of Bollywood. Economic pressures will probably accelerate that trend.
All that is irrelevant because all of this film takes place in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains of North America. It’s decent and clean-cut family entertainment.
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