Alpha looks like a natural history museum educational video by way of a wildly-expensive Superbowl ad. The solo directorial debut of Albert Hughes (who with his brother directed Book of Eli, Menace II Society, and Dead Presidents), the film sees X-Men: Apocalypse‘s Kodi Smit-McPhee as a strangely-articulate primitive man from 20,000 years ago. Thought dead by his tribe, left alone with nothing but his ’90s raver braided bowl-cut, he befriends an aggressive wolf that was likewise abandoned. Together, the two struggle to survive against the dangers of what looks like so many desktop background images.
Despite the title’s similarity to another film about a CGI wolf, the name apparently instead refers to this wolf being the first domesticated canine in history. So yeah, let that sink in. What you’re looking at is the dog from Frasier‘s forefather.
You can see the rest of this Frasier icon’s story when Alpha hits theaters a strangely long time from now: March 2, 2018.
