Alpha (Film Review)

2018 Columbia Pictures
Directed by: Albert Hughes; Written by: Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt
Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Chuck (The Czechoslovakian Wolfdog)
MPAA Rating: PG-13
The Nicsperiment Score: 7/10

An image sticks in my mind: Mel Gibson in a gunfight with a dark-haired woman on what looks like a train station platform. This occurs exactly one minute into the teaser trailer for the 1999 film, Payback. That spring I sat in a dark, now torn-down theater, awaiting that scene. It never shone out of the projector. Something similar happened to me while watching this year's Alpha. 2:21 into Alpha's original trailer, there's a woman in white letting loose a battle cry as she fires an arrow. No such character appears in this film.
I only begin with this because Alpha's release date has been delayed for what seems like forever. Usually, this would be the sign of a stinker, but that isn't the case here.
Alpha tells the story of a thoughtful prehistoric boy who becomes a hardened warrior. After some prehistoric prologuing, the boy becomes critically wounded and lost in the wilderness, eventually befriending an equivocally injured wolf. The trailer would lead you to believe Alpha is primarily about how a wolf is first domesticated into a dog by a human. While that certainly happens, the wolf doesn't make an appearance until nearly halfway in--in truth, this is a coming-of-age story for its human lead, Keda.
Keda's father has taken him on a bison hunt, which proves that Keda is not only not ready to hunt, but doesn't have what it takes to even kill an animal in order to eat it in the first place. The blood-and-killing-averse Keda soon gets a crash course, as he is stranded from his family, and forced to make it on his own in the prehistoric plains of 18,000 BC. It's nearly an hour into the film before the titular wolf arrives, played by a very game Czechoslovakian Wolfdog named Chuck. While youngster Kodi Smit-McPhee does an able job portraying Keda's transformation from wet-behind-the-ears wallflower to sabertooth tiger-battling badass, it's the expressive Chuck who steals the show. Director Albert Hughes' shots of the bonding duo chasing prey are poetry in motion, Keda and Alpha going from limping to gracefully running in the film's second half. They better run, as winter is coming, and while it may not be full of ice zombies, it is full of crushing, murderous cold.
The film's choppy (like this review), at times episodic pace belies its troubled post-production period, and wherever that Amazonian warrior figure originally fit in is anyone's best guess now. The film's low-quality CGI, most obvious in its larger, now extinct megafauna, belies its not quite big-budget. The film also rather unexpectedly features dialogue spoken only in a speculative ancient language, and features English only in subtitles, a bold and slightly controversial move for a film clearly geared toward families.
However, some films can get by on heart alone, and Alpha has great cinematography and solid performances to boot. From what I've heard, a later Director's Cut of Payback greatly improved an original cut I must admit I already enjoyed. I really need to check that out. Maybe Alpha will get the same treatment some day. For now, it makes for a nice diversion, the welcome non-cartoon or superhero film with a brain I can take my kid to. He said Alpha (the wolf, not the movie) reminded him of our dog. I think that means the film works.