Review of Alpha

Alpha (II) (2018)
6/10
Not Exactly Jean Auel Here
17 August 2018
Warning: Spoilers
And she did it much better in the Mammoth Hunters describing a girl and her wolf. The first part of the movie was particularly hard to believe. Any modern farm kid grows up understanding that if you want to eat a ham sandwich, you have to kill the pig. It just wasn't credible that an adolescent paleolithic hunter would shrink from the coup de grace. Unless this guy's name is really Ferdinand and he just wants to smell the flowers and frolic with the butterflies. As noted, and like the much superior Quest for Fire from the early 1980s, there is no/no English dialogue (although nobody believes the Western Hemisphere was populated 20,000 years ago, so Anthony Burgess' made-up Quest for Fire dialogue is more plausible.) Another much superior version is the first 20 minutes of 2001, circa 1967. Subtitles only so don't bring the kids unless you want them to pester you to death--which they'll do anyway cause this movie moves at a veeerrrry "stately" pace.

Dear wife got hooked by the previews, but this is no Clan of the Cave Bear, and this actor is no Darryl Hannah. This left me wondering how on earth this got financed, and I find it hard to believe its going to find an audience. Go read the first three volumes of Jean Auel's series. It goes rapidly downhill in the later volumes, but the parts of Valley of Horses covering the survival of an adolescent in the harsh Ice Age are vastly superior, and much more plausible than this since that particular adolescent actually seems to know what she's doing. Be warned.
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