An odd dog

The various strengths of ‘Alpha,’ about the bond of a young man and wolf, don’t add up to strong film

It’s hard to understand what “Alpha” is trying to be or, perhaps more importantly, for whom it’s intended. ¶ Ultimately a simple imagined story about the first time man and dog forged a bond, it seems it may have been made with younger viewers in mind. “Alpha” does, after all, center on the friendship of a boy and a wolf, and how they come to depend on each other to survive. ¶ But then it is challenging to explain the PG-13 rating, earned for a few intense moments; the use of a language constructed for the film paired with English subtitles; and striking photography and visual tricks seemingly aimed at wowing camera and editing geeks. his father (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, “Game of Thrones,” “Noah”). A visually arresting sequence, it concludes with one of the hard-charging beasts sending Keda over a cliff.

We then travel back in time one week, to see Keda attempting to learn from his father (Spencer Bogaert, “Vincent,” “Labyrinthus”) vital skills such as weapon carving and fire starting. We also see his mother tell his father that Keda should not leave the village for the hunt, that he leads with his heart, not his spear.

But leave he does. And while the fall doesn’t kill Keda, his father is made to accept by others in the tribe there is no way to get to his son and that he must accept Keda will die.

Keda does survive, of course — we won’t spoil how — but he is injured significantly and has only a basic map of stars carved on his hand to guide him home.

Early in his journey, Keda is attacked by a pack of wolves but, obviously, survives, wounding the pack’s leader, its alpha, in the process. And thus begins the real tale of “Alpha,” Keda working to befriend and mend the wolf and the pair eventually working as a team and racing against the clock.

This is the Ice Age, after all, and trust us: Winter is coming.

Smit-McPhee, who first became known to many when he played Boy in the 2009 post-apocalyptic drama “The Road,” offers a decent performance. However, he’s a bit overshadowed by the fourlegged Chuck, and the storytelling style implemented by Hughes here doesn’t do Smit-McPhee any favors.

The tale of “Alpha” is conveyed in fits and starts, Hughes and a team that also includes cinematographer Martin Gschlacht (“Goodnight Mommy”) being most concerned with presenting vivid bits of imagery and transitioning between them. The drama suffers for it.

“Alpha” does look great — like a fairly amazing cross between one of those short films on Vimeo full of time-lapses and other techniques that appear designed to show off the latest in high-definition cameras and a digital effectsladen film such as “Avatar.” In other words, this movie looks more real at certain times than others, when it looks, well, hyperreal. That heightened look is not inherently a bad thing, but it can keep you from getting lost in the story.

Nonetheless, a great deal of work clearly went into making “Alpha” pop in 3D, which it does. So, if you decide to see it in the theater, that is the way to see it.

But should you see it? That’s simply tough to answer.

It’s hard to criticize the filmmakers for taking the trouble to have a language invented for the film. They approached the Language Creation Society, a group of people who’ve helped create languages for “Avatar” and “Game of Thrones,” which led to the hiring of anthropology professor Christine Schreyer. According to the film’s production notes, she spent three months studying Cro-Magnons and creating a vocabulary of 1,500 words for the tribe, which is pretty cool. Again, though, the choice hardly makes the film more accessible.

There is a lot to appreciate with “Alpha,” but it doesn’t all come together in one fluid vision. Perhaps it will connect with a lot of people, but it feels like a film that will be lost to the dog days of August.

“Alpha” is the odd but not unlikeable child of Albert Hughes — one half of the Hughes brothers directing tandem whose often-visceral and -violent film include “Menace II Society,” “Dead Presidents” and “The Book of Eli” — who directed and provided the story. (The script of “Alpha” is credited to Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt.)

Hughes’ film boasts no big-name actors, starring Kodi Smit-McPhee (“Let Me In,” “X-Men: The Apocalypse”) and Chuck the Czech wolf dog, giving a really nice animal performance, by the way.

Set 20,000 years ago in what is now Europe, “Alpha” begins with a cliffhanger, literally, with 17-year-old Keda (Smit-McPhee) for the first time out on the annual bison hunt conducted by the Cro-Magnon tribe led by

COLUMBIA PICTURES Kodi Smit-McPhee portrays Keda, a young man living during the Ice Age who befriends a wolf to survive, in “Alpha.”