How mankind discoverd mans best friend explains ‘Alpha’.

Literature and cinema have served up dozens, if not hundreds, of “boy and his dog” stories over the years, but “Alpha” may be a genre first: an origin tale.

Directed by Albert Hughes from his own story, and a script by Daniele Sebastian Weidenhaupt, the movie is set in Europe, 20,000 years ago. A hunting tribe, speaking rudimentary dialogue in a language invented for the movie, is on a seasonal expedition. Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee), the son of the tribe’s leader, Tau, gets hurled off a cliff by an angry buffalo. The teenager lands on a ledge, alive, but the heartbroken Tau (Johannes Haukur Johannesson, who resembles a young Orson Welles) and the tribe have to abandon him.

Keda survives and tries to make his way home, navigating by the Big Dipper constellation tattooed on his hand. Set upon by a pack of wolves, he injures one and takes pity on it. Keda mends up the German shepherd-like beast and names it Alpha.

The two become friends and helpmates. While the need to get home is urgent (and becomes more so when snow comes), there’s time for play, too. A good number of the story elements here are shopworn, although a twist at the finale is salutary.

While the movie was shot largely in beautiful, striking sites in British Columbia, there’s a lot of C.G.I. here. Possibly by necessity; these days they don’t let you drive a herd of buffalo off a cliff just for a movie. But Mr. Hughes, who for many years cocreated films with his twin brother, Allen, and here makes his solo feature debut, is a sharp and engaged visual storyteller. It’s a pleasure to see him working in expansive wide-screen, a fitting format for his chops.