Before you read this review, you should know my existing bias. I’m a cat person. There are several reasons for this, but it all comes down to the low maintenance aspect. So, upon seeing the trailer for Alpha earlier this year, I was dumbfounded why anyone would want to see an uninspiring take on the origin of humankind’s friendship with dogs. Also, the trailer did an arguably terrible job of exciting potential audiences.
Alpha takes place in the last ice age over 20,000 years ago. The film centers on a nomadic tribe that lives and dies by the yearly hunt. Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee), the son of the chief, finally has a chance to prove his worth in the hunt, but calamity strikes and separates him from his tribe. He is left to survive on his own and ends up finding an unlikely companion.
Admittedly, I didn’t walk in to the movie with sincere expectations. I even thought screening the movie on IMAX 3D was a bit too much pomp and circumstance. Though, as it played out, I was swallowed in the sheer beauty of the experience. I waited for the movie to sink into mediocrity, but it never did. In fact, I fell prey to the world building done in such a short movie (96 minutes).
Essentially, what we have is a survival story similar to Castaway or The Revenant. Visually, it’s closest to The Revenant, but without the bloodlust revenge plot. Keda suffers through constant death-defying situations all with the intent of making it home and being seen as the man the tribe needs him to be. It’s a simple story that works and flows well because of the relationship between he and Alpha.
Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In, The Road) really surprised me by carrying this large-scale movie mostly on his own. I truly believed he was a boy who had so much to prove to his tribe (and father), that it became his sole reason to survive. While the story is seemingly a standard journey/survival movie, the amount of effort put forward by him is something special. In a very short movie, you see his character progress from a passive and weak child to developing into a brave adult that is put to the test in nearly every scene. Somehow, combining a coming-of-age story with ancient times and survival, makes for a quality film that seems far more original than it actually is.
Writer Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt invented an original language for the movie. Yes, for those of you who hate subtitles, this will be an issue, but only for part of the movie. I say this, because there is very little speaking in Alpha, but that doesn’t take away from the form of communicating that Keda and Alpha have.
I’m honestly still surprised by the quality and effort that went into this movie. Director Albert Hughes (Book of Eli, Menace II Society) along with cinematographer Martin Gschlact (and yes, I spell checked that) have crafted a movie worthy of you and your family’s time.
Alpha is anything but original, but compared to the glut of overblown CG movies that are released every month, it’s a refreshing and beautiful work. Having seen it once, I’d never need to see it again, but I would urge everyone to see this on an IMAX screen to soak in the art of it all, if nothing else. I’m still a cat guy, but somehow the story of a boy and his dog sucked me in. Also, I’m sure a human/cat survival movie would have turned out far different. B
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