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Trailers! These little pieces of film offer an insight into what a movie has to offer, and depending on its quality, it can either make or break a film. Let me tell you, in some of my reviews, I have mentioned how a trailer has unexpectedly spoiled a movie for me, either by revealing the gags or the worse sin of revealing the suspense by dropping plenty of spoilers. However, the Alpha trailer did everything within its power to persuade me to watch the film, which is exactly what I hoped it would do. When I learned it was in post-production limbo for over a year after the original release date, it was excruciating to see the trailer and be so eager to watch the film.
Taking place during pre-wite history in Europe, Alpha tracks a young tribal member, Keda, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, who is currently in the middle of his life. He is on the verge of becoming a man. While this is highly valued in tribal cultures, it is still something he works towards. The fact that Keda has a father who holds much power in their society makes this transition even more difficult. Keda’s father is Tau (Game of Thrones), a leader of a great tribe. Both Tau and the tribe expect nothing less of Keda than to become a great warrior, leader, and hunter. The issue arises in the fact that Keda is everything but a warrior. He’s soft-hearted and lacks a ‘killer’ instinct.
Ignoring his wife’s worries, Tau is overly eager to validate his son’s worth for the tribe and makes some hasty decisions. Not only does he initiate Keda into the tribe, but he also prepares Keda for the tribe’s yearly Great Hunt, a quest that only a few make it back from alive. Once Keda gets away from the rest of the hunting group in a rather brutal and inventive manner he is required to employ all the techniques that his father taught him and tame a wolf that in theory is his strongest foe. After this violent separation, he must find ways to survive.
At first glance, Alpha appears to be another tale of a boy and his dog. A boy is lost and so is a dog, when they meet they befriend each other. It is a story that we’ve seen many times throughout cinema. Hughes himself may have not been assisted by his brother when making the feature, but he guaranteed that Alpha, like many of their films, has that stark and dark beauty their viewers have come to love. The stark beauty of Hughes Brother’s films is still captured in the film. Alpha is indeed a dire film, one that, like every other film by Hughes Brothers, transforms each scene into a piece of art that forces the viewer to sit on the edge. Watching Keda’s adventures does not make one excited or relaxed. Rather unsettling, because the world he traverses is so hostile that even a slight error can lead to the demise of his tribe. The world is distant and cold, equally and unrelentingly. Hughes makes it beautiful on screen. Never does reality grant us a break. But on the big screen? I was disappointed that we were not watching it in IMAX.
It certainly seems to be a Hughes thing as we witnessed him and his sibling recreate the Finger 1 salamander and mud volcano in the apocalyptic setting of The Book Of Eli.
The beauty of Alpha does distract you from the fact that it does not have the best storyline. Incredible landscapes and magnificent night skies seem to add to the suspense in the film and while Hughes and his screenwriter, first-time writer Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt, always seem to find new inventive ways to show Keda in peril, the film does dip so swiftly towards the end with what feels like a satisfying if not rushed finale. Even if I enjoyed the film, there seems to be something more that was left unexplored. The film hints that there will be trouble for Tau courtesy of his right-hand man, Sigma (Marcin Kowalczyk You Are God, The Lure) but nothing happens so it makes one think that perhaps something was cut out. That feeling is further enhanced by the fact that all the adult characters seem to just disappear, apart from a dream sequence, during the time Keda has to commence his relationship with Alpha.
Alpha as a film is, in a way, a coming-of-age film for Kodi Smit-McPhee as well. It is truly intriguing to consider that Alpha serves as a coming-of-age story for Keda. To an audience, the name Smit-McPhee has always lived on the screen. He has undeniably given some powerful performances in Matching Jack and some heavily promoted The Road and Let Me In, but he has always been boxed in as a child actor. Even portraying Nightcrawler in the Marvel franchise has not relieved him of that burden, but here Smit-McPhee does seem to be cast as a man. He is the same Smit-McPhee, the same gritty struggling actor, but appears to be more willing than ever to embrace adult roles.
Alpha has some amazing CGI and some of the sequences are so beautiful that they come off as a piece of art itself. Alpha has made some bold creative choices that have severely improved the movie, such as the decision to not make the actors speak English. That choice brings authenticity to the movie, and it also seems like Hollywood has realized that subtitles are okay. The movie may be a surprise hit of 2018. One of the most acclaimed directors, Albert Hughes has more under his sleeves than we knew, and Kodi Smit-McPhee still proves to be one of the most promising actors in Hollywood.
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