Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Natassia Malthe, Johannes Hauker Johannesson, Leoner Varela, Mercedes de la Zerda, Jens Hulten, Spencer Bogaert, Priya Rajaratnam, Patrick Flanagan, Marcin Kowalczyk, Michael Kruse-Dahl, Kyle Glenn Sutherland, Louis Lay, Tran Kootenhayoo, Nestor de las Xerda, Blake Point, Nashon Douglas, Morgan Freeman.

Quite often a film needs no explanation to relay just how incredible it is just to sit down in the cinema and see it unfold before your eyes on the big screen. It doesn’t have to be a film that is steeped in the dynamic, of the flair, or at times the outstanding dialogue, it just has to leave a mark upon your soul, something that resonates deep down in the race of memory, that sparks a passion in the D.N.A.; such a film is to be lauded because it retraces our own collective imprint and sharing of the planet, it is where we learned to share, and for that Alpha, is a treasure of cinema.

Many will see this film and be put off by the use of subtitles, the speech pattern and language invented for the picture, however the dialogue in all manner of enjoyment, does not really matter, it does not detract from the spectacle and story, from the lavish shots and scope of the imagination involved. Often, words can be a hindrance to understanding, and whilst the conveying of the meaning between human and wolf is required for some moments in the film, it does not mean that you have notice them on screen when the important thing is the connection felt.

At it most surface level Alpha is a coming of age story, the young and unsure finding that they have the belief and spirit to conquer the adversity placed before them; in that Alpha is perhaps no different to any other film which uses this trope to inspire. Yet, the film is so much more than a lost soul in search of home, it is the importance of what humanity once understood but has forgotten in its search for supremacy in the stars and dominion of the planet, that we are a part of nature, we have neglected to listen to the call of the wild and that in our hearts, we have destroyed the path set out. Alpha is a timely reminder that we are nothing more than apes that learned to hunt and talk and that is our undoing.

A film of grace, one that may be passed by, one that should be chief viewing; Alpha is the dog in the fight to support.

Ian D. Hall