Alpha and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing
Directed by Albert Hughes
Wait, didn’t this movie come out like four months ago? I feel like I’ve been seeing the poster for this for like a year now and it just passed me by somehow like The Founder, Gotti, and that Amityville thing they ended up giving away for free. For whatever reason this was just in the background for way too long for me to reasonably expect to ACTUALLY see it (especially considering I never even got a trailer for it despite seeing posters every once in a while), but I guess Crazy Rich Asians needed SOMETHING to trounce this weekend, so we’ve got this one out there to presumably make a quick buck for a weekend or two before slinking off to be forgotten. Okay, maybe that’s being a bit too harsh as the release schedule of a movie is hardly the best barometer for a film’s quality, and what little I know about this movie sounds… okay. I guess. Anyway, does this coming of age story about a boy and his wolf turn out to be the perfect blockbuster to cap off the season, or is the auspicious timing of its release a huge sign that you should stay very far away? Let’s find out!!
The movie follows the story of the boy Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and the wolf Alpha (a Czechoslovakian Vlca known as Chuck) who run into each other under… shall we say STRAINED circumstances. You see the year is 17,982 BC (twenty thousand years ago as a subtitle informs us) and, Keda is a bit of a wussy whose dad (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson) is the chief of his tribe and wants to get the wussy out of him before his wussiness gets the best of him. In order to de-wuss-ify the boy, he takes him on THE HUNT where they… I don’t know, hunt animals that are VERY far away in order to drag their rotting corpses back to the village and store for winter; presumably before the flies and maggots take ALL the good meat. Anyway, Keda The Wussy manages to get himself gored by a prehistoric buffalo and falls down to his presumed death; having never learned how to truly stop being a wussy. A tragedy for all involved, but the good news is that Keda somehow manages to survive his near certain death; albeit a little bit worse for wear. The bad news? Well the hunting crew has already gone back and so Keda has to travel all by himself back to the village which SEEMS to be hundreds of miles away. Again, seems like a pretty far way to go to get meat, but either way Keda has to find a way to get there before it starts snowing. Then he’s REALLY in trouble! But I know what you all are asking! WHAT ABOUT THAT SUPER ADORABLE WOLF!? It tries to eat Keda early on and gets injured in the process, but Keda decides to help the poor creature with sharp fangs and they eventually grow to be friends which makes it just a little bit more plausible for Keda to survive his journey. What does the wolf get out of this? I don’t know, table scraps? Does Keda have what it takes to survive such a harsh environment while also learning to stop being a wussy? Does the wolf truly care for Keda, or is it simply following him around so he can get at his precious meat when he drops dead of exposure?
The Reviewers Unite 