Alpha Review

Did you see Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon and say: “That was good, but I wish it was live action and forgettable”? Then I’ve got the movie for you! Alpha is the story of a boy named Kada that is raised in a tribe of unusually well groomed pre-historic people. When they go hunting, the chief brings him along because Kada made a pointy rock. Also he’s the son of the chief. This is Kada’s first hunting trip, and he promptly gets knocked off a cliff by some buffalo and is presumed dead. He’s not. Kada finds a doggo and is Homeward Bound. First off, this movie is beautiful. The advance screening I went to was in IMAX 3D, and I think that this movie NEEDS to be seen in IMAX. The 3D didn’t blow me away. The backgrounds were sometimes distracting because of how beautiful they are. Sometimes I missed big chunks of subtitles because I was too busy staring at the background! That leads us to the thing that bothered me the most in this movie: the subtitles. The movie would have been more effective if the dialogue was cut. The movie treats its audience like idiots. It thinks that people can’t follow visual storytelling. In A Quiet Place, the movie only delivers dialogue via subtitles when absolutely necessary. The movie generally trusts its audience to read a character’s emotions without straight up saying: “I am sad. Do you know why I’m sad? Here is why I am sad.” Audiences can piece things together without having their hand held throughout the movie. Despite this movie’s many flaws, I would still recommend it. It has breathtaking visuals and surprisingly intense action scenes that make up for the predictable plot and weird editing. B-