Alpha

First Hit: The premise was good but sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting for the film to move along almost made me leave early.

It is known that wolves are the ancestors of our modern-day dog, man’s best friend. Having a dog, albeit a small one, has shown me how wonderful dogs are as companions and especially how loyal they are.

The problem with this film is that it was unrealistic in too many ways to make me believe this version of the story about how wolves and man created a synergy that would last thousands and thousands of years.

What wasn’t believable? That the village of people lived so very far away from the once a year food they’d collect. When they went hunting for buffalo they men traveled for months. We didn’t see much about how they survived, ate and drank water, through these harsh geographic elements. Their teeth were perfect, meaning the make-up didn’t even try to hide this fact. That they killed the buffalo by herding them off a cliff, just didn’t seem realistic. But most of the fantasy was Keda’s (Kodi Smit-McPhee) journey back to his village after his father Tau (Johannes Haukur Johannesson) and his team of hunters, left Keda to die on the edge of a cliff. Not only did I find it hard to believe he survived the fall, I also didn’t believe he could have survived the months long trek back to his village by following tattoos on his arm supposedly mapping stars in the sky. They didn’t provide much guidance and because of the long travel time, those stars would have shifted in the night sky.

Keda was identified by his mother Rho (Natassia Malthe) and possibly the Shaman (Leonor Varela) to be more big hearted and less ruthless than the others in the tribe. Although Keda adequately created a flint spear head, which gave him the honor of joining the hunting expedition, he wasn’t seen as having the killer instinct. This proves out during the trek to the buffalo hunting site as he refuses to kill a boar for food.

First you have to buy that he's big hearted (the most believable aspect of the film), then you must believe he survived the fall off a tremendous cliff with only a hurt ankle. The crown was that the story wants you to believe that he made the journey back to his village looking at the tattoo on his hand every 5 days or so. Just not likely.

However, believing this was the set up was to give credence to his first injuring the wolf, the alpha of the pack, then, because of his kind heart, nurses the wolf back to health. The wolf in-turn helps him hunt and kill food and keeps him warm at night.

At one point the wolf leaves Keda because Alpha's old pack coax the wolf back. But then there is a scene where Keda meets up with the wolf pack and the wolf chooses to save Keda against the elements.

The whole trek back to Keda’s village could have been cut by 50% to help the film. It just didn’t need all the snow driven angst. However, the ending shows how man and wolf/dogs became companions in a larger sense which was nice.

Smit-McPhee was adequate as Keda. His looks and actions, though, didn’t seem like they were correct to reflect being 20,000 years in the past. Johannesson was OK as the tribe leader, but he didn’t look like he came from 20,000 years ago. Malthe was OK as Keda’s mother. Whatever animal played Alpha was wonderful. Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt wrote an OK screenplay (dialog wise). Although I don’t think language had developed that well 20,000 years ago. However, I could be wrong. Albert Hughes had a wonderful vision about how wolves became the forefathers of our modern dog, but this wasn’t borne out in the final product. The best part of the film were some of the geographic shots of the land.

Overall: There were multiple times I wanted to get up and leave because of boredom.

The Road

First Hit: A very dark story about what it might be like if we keep heading down the road we’re on.

The world, as we know it, has ended and a few people are alive. We don’t know what ended the world; it could have been war but mostly it looks like a disaster of some sort hit our planet. The mood is dark and stays dark throughout most of the film.

The characters don’t have names and Viggo Mortensen plays the man, Kodi Smit-McPhee plays the boy, and Charlize Theron plays the woman. Through dream flashbacks you learn that the woman, somewhat regretfully, has a child during our planet's deterioration.

She is strong and doesn’t want to live this long slow painful death she sees for the remaining humans. She chooses death. The man believes he must live on with the boy so they travel South looking for warmer weather.

They run into gangs of people who kill and eat strangers and it is clear that women and children are the prized killings and first to be eaten. The man and boy survive these tribulations as they move South and towards the ocean.

The boy is naïve and yet wise and guides his father towards kindness when possible. They run into one old man on the road played by Robert Duvall and befriend him for a couple of days. This is a dark story with small nuggets of kindness here and there.

Mortensen is intense as the man and is very good in this part. He was an excellent choice for this part. Smit-McPhee is sweet and looks as if he could have been Theron’s son (I’m sure he was picked for this part because of the resemblance). Duvall is wonderful for is portrayal of the old man who has most, but not all, of his marbles left. The constant darkness of this film both in color and texture of the scenes is powerful. A scene showing humans being stored and harvested for their meat is tough to watch. There are a handful of scenes in dream sequences where Theron and Mortensen are young lovers when the world was still hopeful and these scenes bring some light colors to the screen but those scenes are few and far between.

Overall: Make no mistake; if you don’t like dark foreboding films then don’t go to see this. However, it is a story that could be telling of our future if we’re not careful.