Alpha (2018)

Directed by Albert Hughes. Starring Kodi Smit-Mcphee, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Natassia Malthe, Jens Hultén, Leonor Varela. [PG-13]

The callow son (Smit-McPhee) of a Stone Age hunter gets left for dead by his tribe after he falls off a cliff onto an unreachable ledge, but the determined young man makes his way down and begins an odyssey to return home, where he gradually befriends a wounded wolf that becomes his companion for the journey. A strikingly designed and photographed adventure with only the flimsiest thread of a story; it’s hard to dislike a boy-and-his-dog story, but the suspension of disbelief needed to accept the “domestication” of the wild predator is awfully demanding. Never rousing, and rooting interest in the human hero is by unearned default, but it’s a passable wilderness tale unburdened by ambitions beyond basic but scant deep-rooted pleasures. First directorial effort for Albert Hughes without his twin brother, Allen.

58/100