“Heart of the Beast” is a solid, formulaic adventure tale given a lift by leading man Brad Pitt and his connection to the German shepherd his character’s brought to the Alaskan wilderness with him.

Uber, who plays Odin the combat veteran getting by on three legs and his utter devotion to his Army handler, who took him into retirement with him, is a New Zealand mountain rescue specialist with big soulful eyes that make him perfect for conveying the love that transcends obedience for James Belmot (Pitt), Special Forces, retired.

“End of Watch” and “Fury” director David Ayer and his players strain to over overcome CGI critters and an utterly conventional, Jack London “stranded in Alaska” adventure tale’s tropes in serving up an exciting, perilous and moving movie about a soldier and his dog.

James and Odin or “Odie” served in the Middle East and survived multiple near-death experiences there. They have the scars to prove it. Odie has one artificial leg, “titanium” teeth and cuts across his muzzle. We have to wait for James to take off his shirt to see the damage his body took.

Now, the retired commando and his dog are flying a small float plane through the Alaskan bush. They’re getting away from it all. And them all.

You can tell by James’ hostile, rifle-cradled-in-his-arms posture that he’s not thrilled to have a Sourdough canoe traveller (J.K.Simmons) drop by their remote campsite. The gregarious stranger cuts in on their bonding and roughhousing time.

As both human and his partner dog have nightmares about their service overseas (seen in flashbacks), they’d just as soon keep to themselves.

But outrunning a storm in a small plane is enough to stress anybody, especially someone with a bum ticker. They crash. The plane is lost, the dog is hurt and they’re 58 miles from the nearest road.

If you’ve ever any version of a “lost in Alaska” tale you know what’s coming, starting with the small plane crash. It has to happen in a lake. They have to swim and tote what gear they can and hoof it out.

There’ll be digital wolves hunting digital moose, a CGI bear to confront, rapids to be survived, a gorge to be crossed on a rotten tree that’s fallen across it and the like.

Kudos to screenwriter Cameron Alexander for not serving up quicksand, or its Alaskan equivalent — falling through the ice on a frozen lake. Lived there, done that, BTW.

But Pitt’s stoic soldier and his adoring, smart and capable dog problem solve, save each other and help each other recover from wounds and other setbacks. And we buy it. Boy do we ever.

It’s a tear jerker, one of the few on Pitt’s Hollywood resume, and just saying that is sending more sensitive souls to http://www.doesthedogdie.com to see if this is a movie they can endure.

It’s a dog lovers’ movie, and I love dogs. But it is also, whatever the violence of its predictable parade of action beats, a terrible bore.

Harrison Ford taught all of Hollywood that using digital animals in a film like “Call of the Wild” or this variation of it is a bad idea. Mark Wahlberg & Co. heeded that warning with the sweet and superior “Arthur the King.” The producers of “Supergirl” did not.

“Heart of the Beast” tries to have it both ways in a thriller so dogmatically straightforward that it may send you, as it did me, to the Internet Movie Database to see if Cameron Alexander is one of Chat GPT’s pseudonyms.

Rating: PG-13, violence, bloody wounds and profanity

Cast: Brad Pitt, Anna Lambe and J.K. Simmons

Credits: Directed by David Ayer, scripted by Cameron Alexander. A Paramount release.

Running time: 1:41