Alpha

My wife and I watched this movie at home on DVD from our public library. The characters speak in a made-up language and the movie has subtitles in English.

This is your basic coming of age story, set about 20,000 years ago. A boy is growing into a man, his father is the leader of the tribe. They go on a hunt some distance away, the boy is to show his skills at catching and killing wildlife.

But things go very wrong for the boy, he ends up down a cliff, unreachable, and after considerable parental angst is presumed dead and they go on without him.

The boy does in fact survive, badly injured, and is able to begin his difficult trek to find his home, aided by night sky navigation his father taught him. Along the way he encounters a wounded wolf, the two eventually bond, and help each other as winter snows begin to fall. He names the wolf "Alpha."

The only "new" thing here is the setting long ago, the story of survival and a boy and his "dog" has been told before, but this is a nice, clean movie and for the most part entertaining to see the difficulties they encounter along the way back home.

The closing credits states Alberta, Canada was a primary filming location. And I was amazed at how many technicians were needed to do the post production work to finish the movie.