From the Dawn of Time to the Day after Tomorrow...
"Alpha" shows our beginnings with canines, while "A-X-L" shows where it might be heading...
Since no records exist about man’s earliest encounters with animals (except for the fascinatingly-cryptic drawings found in caves), we really have no idea when mankind started bonding with animals. Films about our distant ancestors are rare too, since it’s hard to overcome the built-in silliness factor of stars running around in animal skins, so 2018’s “Alpha” had a lot going against it.
Enter Albert Hughes. Albert and his brother Allen, burst onto the scene with 1993’s “Menace II Society” and 1995’s “Dead Presidents” (a terrific robbery movie, BTW) but Albert didn’t want to be pidgeon-holed as a black director doing black stories and soon surprised with the Jack the Ripper story, “From Hell” and the post-apocalyptic “The Book of Eli.” He’s not the first director I’d think would be interested in a prehistoric survival flick, but he was, he did, and “Alpha” shows he’s a smart, severely underrated director.
Set roughly twenty thousand years ago, “Alpha” shows a small band of humans surviving in a cold, vast rocky wasteland by hunting mastodons. The leader of the tribe wants his young son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) to succeed him as chief but questions whether the boy is tough enough to do it. On the latest hunt, McPhee falls over a cliff, is thought dead, and left behind. He’s survived though, only to be menaced by a pack of wolves once he climbs out. He manages to fight the pack off, wounding one of the wolves, who itself is left behind by the pack. Taking pity on the wounded animal, he nurses it back to health, and together the two of them attempt the long, dangerous trip back to his camp.
I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say they succeed, barely, just in time to discover the wolf was pregnant and gives birth to a litter of pups in front of the surprised tribe, so that the last shot of the film is of the next hunt, this time accompanied by their wolf compatriots. Man’s long history with animal companions has begun.
Visually, the film is stunning, showing the two of them making their way through the endless emptyness of the land. It’s a largely silent film except for bits of subtitled dialog. I was very suprised by McPhee’s performance since I knew him only as a geek with glasses from his early films, but here he handles what must have been a very tough role with believeability and conviction. Like the following film I’ll talk about, I think this is a highly underrated film, and certainly anyone who loves animals will love “Alpha” as well.
In the robotic prehistoric days of 2016 when “A.X.L” (Attack eXplore Logistics) was written, the idea that a robot could mimic the motions and behavior of an animal, or that people could become emotionally attached to them, was still pretty far off. When the movie was released in 2018, the critics attacked it as a lightweight family flick and dismissed it. The movie bombed at the box office, but in 2023, I think it’s a different story. I think the film was simply too far ahead of its time. In 2023, robots like AXL not only could exist, they probably do exist, and the questions about how we relate to them and their military uses are more pertinent than ever.
AXL is a seventy-million dollar robot designed to pair with its military operator for search and destroy operations - it’s a killer robot that would bring a smile to Skynet’s Terminators.
One night Axl escapes from its laboratory discretely tucked away in the Southern California foothills and hides in a nearby collection of abandoned sheds, avoiding the drones sent out to look for it, where a young motocross rider (Alex Neustaedter) stumbles across it. Sensing the boy is not a threat, Axl lets the mechanically-adept youth fix its damaged outer shell and pairs with it as its operator. Eventually he shows it to his girlfriend (Becky G.), an artist and another gearhead.
They quickly realize that although Axl is friendly and protective towards them, it is a dangerous machine; but what to do about it? Return it to its creators or try to hide it?
What they don’t know is that its creator (Dominic Rains) has tapped into its video feed and is watching everything they’re doing. Its creator is fascinated by how the robot is responding in what amounts to its first real field test and decides not to retrieve the robot immediately but see how everything plays out. His partner is uneasy about this and says it could kill someone, to which the creator blandly responds that’s what the robot is designed to do. The Military is also expecting to see what they’ve sunk their money into and this is the ideal way to test its capabilities and programming. Complications arise when the boy’s rival (Alex MacNicoll) discovers the robot and tries to destroy it. The kids manage to fix it, but now the robot has identified an enemy and when it gets the chance, goes after him.
Far from being a lightweight family flick, “AXL” plays more like a Michael Crichton technothriller. The screenplay is smartly written by veteran genre writer David Goyer and actually respects its characters. The two kids are smart and capable, while the creator easily fits within Crichton’s line of amoral scientists unconcerned about what their creation can be used for as long as they reap the rewards of creating it. The ninety-plus minute film goes by very quickly and the questions it asks are even more relevant today. I was surprised at how good this film is and have no problems recommending it.