Alpha

My wife and I watched this movie at home on DVD from our public library. The characters speak in a made-up language and the movie has subtitles in English.

This is your basic coming of age story, set about 20,000 years ago. A boy is growing into a man, his father is the leader of the tribe. They go on a hunt some distance away, the boy is to show his skills at catching and killing wildlife.

But things go very wrong for the boy, he ends up down a cliff, unreachable, and after considerable parental angst is presumed dead and they go on without him.

The boy does in fact survive, badly injured, and is able to begin his difficult trek to find his home, aided by night sky navigation his father taught him. Along the way he encounters a wounded wolf, the two eventually bond, and help each other as winter snows begin to fall. He names the wolf "Alpha."

The only "new" thing here is the setting long ago, the story of survival and a boy and his "dog" has been told before, but this is a nice, clean movie and for the most part entertaining to see the difficulties they encounter along the way back home.

The closing credits states Alberta, Canada was a primary filming location. And I was amazed at how many technicians were needed to do the post production work to finish the movie.

Alpha is a charming film. If you love dogs, then you're likely to love it. Recommended.

Alpha is epic in scale but simple in plot. It perfectly captures how the Earth would feel and look like 20,000 years ago with stunning cinematography. This is a story of how a boy and a wolf fought together to survive.

This prehistoric European film about a young man who is presumed lost while his tribe is on a hunt. Kodi Smit-McPhee stars as the young man in a primitive world who makes his way back to his family with the aid of a new best friend he's made, a wild dog whom he patched up and the two develop a co-dependency on each other in this first boy and a dog story.

Beautifully photographed in some stark vistas in British Columbia, the most amazing thing about this film that even with some cheating subtitles young Smit-McPhee with primeval grunts and gibberish to pass for caveman language conveys all the emotion of pages of dialog.

This one is a winner, highly recommended.

Wow what an actual surprise. This movie was delayed many times. Originally scheduled to release in September 2017 it was pushed to March 2018 then to September 2018 then back a month to August 2018 ultimately. The reason for these delays? I'm not even quite sure. The first trailers showed a very dark story (which it kinda is), but then newer trailers showed off a bit more of a family friendly "kid gets prehistoric dog" sort of story. The story takes place 20,000 years ago in Europe following a young man named Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee). who has finally joined his father Chief Tau (Johannes Haukur Johannesson) on their tribes yearly hunt. First off this movie is shot beautifully. Some of the best cinematography I've seen for any movie in 2018. It does a great job even in the opening sequence of hunting the bison of just getting color palettes down and giving a sense of dread. The performances are also something that excels in this movie. Johannesson as Chief Tau is just great. He has such a believable love for his son and their chemistry is great. Smit-McPhee as well is excellent and he really grows as a character here. They even created a language they use but even with it being non english the emotions run high in this one. I loved Alpha as well the wolf has a lot of emotions shown through its actions and some slight use of CG. My one gripe here is the last ten minutes get just a bit too Hollywood for me and although there's a twist to the entire story I still wanted it to change it slightly, but without spoiling it it actually makes sense it's just personal preference. Overall, solid movie that suffered from some really bad marketing. I would say if you missed this one to begin with definitely give it a look!