Director Albert Hughes and his editor Sandra Granovsky employ a nice flurry of quick cuts from the opening hunting sequence to bring us back to Keda’s seemingly fatal plunge. We also learn some of the tribe’s rituals that will become important pieces of shorthand later.
In a quiet moment during the flashback, Tau tells Keda about the alpha wolf, the animal who leads the pack and to whom the other wolves defer. We assume Keda’s fall is part of the climax, but it’s actually the catalyst that sets the story in motion. “You must earn it!” During the hunt, which is the first of many well-staged and visually arresting set pieces, Keda’s hesitation allows him to be bested by his prey the result sends him plummeting over a steep cliff.Īs Keda falls, “Alpha” suddenly flashes back to a week before. “Life is for the strong!” his father lectures after Keda fails to finish off a wounded animal. Greatness is expected of Keda, yet he’s a sensitive lad who has a problem with killing the animals. He is the son of Tau ( Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson), the “alpha” of his people. The boy, Keda ( Kodi Smit-McPhee) is first seen bison hunting with his tribe. Alpha is a solid little survival movie that I would recommend, but if you're looking for anything surprising, this movie sadly plays it a little too safe in that regard.But let’s play the hand we’re dealt here.
From films like The Book of Eli to movies like From Hell, director Albert Hughes sure knows how to compose a scene. That's not something I was expecting, so I was kind of blown away at times. From time lapse's to beautiful shots of the sunset, to an editing style that only accentuated the filmmaker's visions, Alpha looks incredible. The standout aspect of this film was easily the cinematography in my opinion. Overall, Alpha probably won't be in any discussions when people talk about their favourites of 2018, but there's nothing holding me back from saying that I had a good time at the movies either. I was hoping for a little more depth, but the movie itself was able to be effective enough to enjoy. Just when you think he's in real danger, he escapes fairly easily and the movie goes from start to finish in a very breezy way and at a mere 97 minutes, it really doesn't have much to offer its audience than a feel-good story of a boy surviving on his own.
I enjoyed watching the core character played very well by Kodi Smit-McPhee, but the movie itself doesn't allow him to reach his full potential. While it doesn't do anything to hurt the film as a whole, the fact that this movie is so streamlined from beginning to end, makes for an uninteresting viewing experience. This leads me to my biggest negative of the movie. Whatever you may expect to happen from that description, will happen. There really isn't much more to the film than that. They slowly form a friendship that will lead to helping each other survive the harsh realities of life. Left to survive on his own, he meets a wolf who has been separated from his/her pack. This movie follows a young man as he is thrust into hunting with his tribe and is mourned when he is thought to be dead. In the end, this film ended up being a nice mixture of every trailer it put out, so I wasn't too surprised in a negative way. This doesn't bother me, but it should come as a caution for those who are unaware. Despite the Sony-owned studio Columbia Pictures distributing it, there isn't a single line of English dialogue spoken throughout the course of the movie. Upon reflection of its trailers, I came to realize that not a single line of dialogue was spoken in most trailers and that's due to the fact that the film isn't in English.
With trailers showcasing this film as an epic with great battle sequences over a year ago, to having the film pushed to almost a year later, to then releasing new trailers that display this film as a family adventure between a boy and his dog, this has been a roller coaster of marketing. Here's why Alpha deserves a little more attention than it's receiving, but also why certain audiences may be turned away upon first glance. That being said, there are a few cautionary aspects that I feel the need to warn about, so my thoughts on the movie as a whole aren't going to be entirely positive. Alpha is among the latest in the survival film category and while it definitely is a movie that plays it safe, it's an effective little movie that I believe some audiences will eat up. Whether it feels dragged out or downright unbelievable in terms of what a human being can really handle, I've only really been blown away by a few of them. In my opinion, survival films are among the most challenging films to pull off.