Alpha

I'm giving this movie an 8 for story, casting and acting of the main actor and a 6 for all the CGI pervading the film, so a 7 in total. As others have noted, this is a beautiful story in its endearing simplicity, and the main actor plays it all very well. Yet, I'm not a fan of all the CGI used by the moviemakers. All these computerised images really do taint the enjoyment of a movie such as this one.

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.

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

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.