The Observer (UK) by Wendy Ide

This Albert Hughes-directed adventure is visually stunning.

TheWrap by William Bibbiani

Alpha comes close to greatness, specifically that rare kind of greatness that we reserve for timeless epics, or at least gorgeous Frank Frazetta illustrations. The story and protagonist aren’t quite rich enough to take it to the next level.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Brad Wheeler

There’s something delightfully clever in a narrative that is easily transferable to modern times. Speaking of which, seeing Alpha on as big and splashy a screen as possible is advisable, preferably with children who can handle occasional scenes of intense peril.

Philadelphia Daily News by Gary Thompson

The movie will play in IMAX theaters and 3-D, which is the best way of seeing it. Director Albert Hughes (yep, the same guy who along with brother Allen did Menace II Society and Dead Presidents) and cinematographer Martin Gschlacht (the recent creep-out Goodnight Mommy) capture and construct some compelling images.

RogerEbert.com by Odie Henderson

The best feature of Alpha is its imagery, which is absolutely stunning in IMAX. Hughes, his cinematographer Martin Gschlacht and the visual effects team create a world that is as beautiful as it is dangerous, often framing the characters in the center of a vast, almost endless landscape.

San Francisco Chronicle by David Lewis

From time to time, there are the requisite cutesy boy-and-his-wolf moments, but for the most part, the film is harrowing, suspenseful and gritty — and a perfect vehicle for impressive 3-D effects that bring to life an exquisitely beautiful but unforgiving land.

Original-Cin by Liam Lacey

Alpha aims to be not just a story but a transporting visual experience, which is one area where it over-reaches.

IGN

Alpha (think Bear Grylls’ meets The Incredible Journey: Ice Age Edition) is a welcome end of summer surprise that will tug at the heartstrings and delivers a visual spectacle that will wow. It’s just a shame that it tips more towards spectacle over substance.

Rolling Stone by David Fear

Alpha is not a perfect movie, and it is occasionally a way-too-pumped-up pulpy one relying on big-budget bulk. But it is most certainly a tonic in an age when every blockbuster film feels like part of some endless multiverse-cum-marketing scheme.

The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore

Enjoyably old-fashioned in its narrative but crisply modern in technique, it is engaging enough even for those of us with no soft spot for pets.

Variety by Owen Gleiberman

Alpha, a spectacular prehistoric eye-candy survival yarn, is enthralling in a square and slightly stolid way.

Film Journal International by Stephen Whitty

The movie...is a visual feast, one of the rare 3D films which was clearly designed with that extra dimension in mind.

The A.V. Club by Jesse Hassenger

Alpha has been sold, to some degree, as a family-friendly film, and while it’s too violent and perhaps too heavily subtitled for young kids (or, for that matter, some adults, who may notice how superfluous much of the dialogue is), it’s easy to picture some 10-year-olds taking to its exciting, cornball charms.

Boston Globe by Tom Russo

The stylishly crafted film mostly succeeds in its engaging (and tagline-ready) ambition to chronicle “how mankind discovered man’s best friend,” even if its naturalistic strengths are swapped out for an exaggeratedly epic tone in the later going.

Movie Nation by Roger Moore

Alpha has to stand as one of the pleasant surprises of the cinematic summer, a gritty yet sentimental fantasy about that first Ice Age boy to fall for a dog.

Austin Chronicle

The resulting sequences might as well be lifted directly from Godfrey Reggio’s Qatsi trilogy; watching these pockets of pure cinema emerge from a "crowd-pleasing" story of a boy and his dog may just be one of the oddest experiences you have at the movies this summer.

Slant Magazine by Jake Cole

It reduces the domestication of wolves to a series of simplistic interactions that don’t exactly convey the difficulties of a wild animal overcoming millennia of instinct.