Let me first say that I love early human history and this was the main reason why I watched this movie (and continued to watch it after being dissapointed). Ok, I'm not that much into canines, I'm more of a feline fan, but I like animals and the human-animal friendship is always a good story for me. Therefore, this movie scored high in my view ... but only from the above angles.
As for the rest, it was very dissapointing - and the main reason was the missing factual accuracy and historical credibility. Although the movie made some efforts - that I do appreciate - to simulate historical accuracy (e.g. realistic scenery, good cinematography, not too much talking, accurate stone tools and appropriate - although way too uniform - costumes), Alpha was for the rest higly inaccurate and not at all believable (I don't think the things in the list below are actual spoilers, as they don't specifically reveal the plot, but if you're really paranoid, you can skip some):
In my view, sure, the human-animal friendship story was nice and such, but this movie would have worked much better by letting the teenager become a man by himself out of the need to survive alone. This would have avoided most of the minuses above, if tweaked a little, and would have generated a similar, if not bigger impact on the viewers. Or, the other (and harder) option: hire someone with a clue about how life was likely to be 20000 years ago, not only visually, but socially as well. I'll give it a 6 just because I like these early human history movies, and the human-animal friendship is always a nice touch. I would love to see more movies like this, but better made.
As for the rest, it was very dissapointing - and the main reason was the missing factual accuracy and historical credibility. Although the movie made some efforts - that I do appreciate - to simulate historical accuracy (e.g. realistic scenery, good cinematography, not too much talking, accurate stone tools and appropriate - although way too uniform - costumes), Alpha was for the rest higly inaccurate and not at all believable (I don't think the things in the list below are actual spoilers, as they don't specifically reveal the plot, but if you're really paranoid, you can skip some):
- early human history was much more violent than portrayed in the movie (where there is 0 conflict within the tribe, almost like at a 21st century gala)
- perfectly shaved men had no place in this movie; ok, you can let some without a fully grown beard and such, but not that flawlessly shaved like the chief's advisor, for example - after all, they only had stone to cut their hair.
- both men and women were not effeminate like today: the tribe chief's wife wouldn't shed tears in public like that, and the chief of the tribe would DEFINITELY avoid at all costs crying like a girl in front of his own subjects / tribe members. Ok, these were not warriors, but even hunters like them confronted death each day and behaving so weakly as tribe leaders would have been unthinkable in those times.
- the chief favoring his son like that would have been challenged earlier (as opposed to never, like in this movie), but hilariously, the director makes the potential challenger ...erm... conveniently dissapear at some point in the story, probably sensing that it's too much unanswered stuff there.
- children those days would have had multiple brothers and sisters. Being the only child would have been possible, but highly unlikely.
- it's again highly unlikely that a teenager those days would be so shy and downright incompetent to not being able to kill a prey, especially knowing how it would embarass his father, who just happened to be the chief of a tribe of hunter-gatherers, go figure.
- hypothetically speaking, you are in a hunter group badly in need of food and you hunt a herd of {insert herbivore here} and most of the prey falls into a trap of some sort that's difficult to get to. What do you do? Try to reach that trap and collect the huge reward, right? What did the hunters in the movie do? Leave without even looking back, giving up food that would have fed them for MONTHS! You'll know what I'm talking about when (and if) you see the movie - I bet you'll agree with me that doing like they did was unbelievably stupid, and a waste they could not afford. They didn't even try!
- the hunting scenes of the main character were absolutely hilarious ... I mean ... a single canine chasing the prey exactly in the character's path from several yards away? Was that prey blind or what? Killing a rabbit with a stone thrown in his head, without the rabbit even moving? Was the rabbit sleeping or was it reading the newspaper? Come on now, gimme a break.
- the CGI on the animals was poor, like really poor. Ok, not every movie has a high budget, but still...it's not like they had to have spaceships there, right?
- the chief lost two tribe members in a single hunting expedition, and both losses were his own faults and avoidable. I don't know about you, but that's not a competent chief in my book.
- (POSSIBLE SPOILER?) I know this was of paramount importance for the story to work, but it bothered me the most: you do NOT, I repeat - NOT, domesticate a fully grown wild animal, to the point of bringing you food or helping you fight other beasts. Ask every wild animal trainer, domestication, if it more or less happens, works only if you raise the animal since it's a cub and you're imprinted in his memory as someone close to a 'parent' (or a 'pack leader' in case of highly social animals). I'm absolutely convinced that this was how humans domesticated animals to this day.
In my view, sure, the human-animal friendship story was nice and such, but this movie would have worked much better by letting the teenager become a man by himself out of the need to survive alone. This would have avoided most of the minuses above, if tweaked a little, and would have generated a similar, if not bigger impact on the viewers. Or, the other (and harder) option: hire someone with a clue about how life was likely to be 20000 years ago, not only visually, but socially as well. I'll give it a 6 just because I like these early human history movies, and the human-animal friendship is always a nice touch. I would love to see more movies like this, but better made.