Ridley Scott is 88 years old and somehow continues to work at a ridiculous pace. If I’m remembering correctly, The Dog Stars marks his fifth movie in five years, which is pretty incredible. And while I wouldn’t say Ridley Scott is on cruise control here—because there are still plenty of moments where you can see the master at work—The Dog Stars is a movie that ultimately feels like it should have been better.
The film stars Jacob Elordi as Hig, a survivor of a pandemic that has wiped out most of humanity. Hig lives in a fortified home with his dog Jasper and Bangley, played by Josh Brolin. Hig still has some humanity left in him. He helps people when he can, flies his plane around looking for supplies, and is clearly searching for something more than simply surviving. Bangley, on the other hand, is much more hardened. His entire existence is about staying alive, trusting as few people as possible, and eliminating anything that threatens them.
And thank God for Josh Brolin.
Brolin is fantastic in this movie, as he usually is, and I honestly think his presence saves a lot of it. He has the kind of screen presence where even some of the clunky dialogue sounds better coming out of his mouth. Guy Pearce eventually joins the movie as Pops, and he provides that same kind of veteran presence. In fact, Brolin and Pearce are probably my favorite parts of the entire film. They bring a level of gravitas that the script desperately needs.
The first 20 minutes or so feel very I Am Legend-ish. Hig and Jasper wander through an abandoned world, looking for supplies and trying to survive. Of course, in true post-apocalyptic fashion, the virus itself isn’t necessarily the biggest threat anymore. It’s the people left behind.
Eventually, Hig ventures away from home and encounters Sima, played by Margaret Qualley, and Pops. Hig and Sima form a bond over their shared trauma, while Pops becomes the hardened protector of their little group. From there, the movie turns into more of an adventure, with some genuinely cool action sequences involving night-vision goggles, airplanes and various escapes.
There is one particular section in Grand Junction that I thought was pretty damn cool. The whole sequence reminded me of BioShock—the music, the eerie atmosphere, the bizarre society they’ve created, and Allison Janney showing up dressed as a stewardess while these people are doing some seriously strange things. It has that feeling of discovering some bizarre little pocket of civilization that has completely lost its mind. Unfortunately, the movie telegraphs almost immediately where that storyline is going. The first guy you see practically screams, “I’m evil.”
And that’s kind of the problem with The Dog Stars.
It feels like a bunch of different post-apocalyptic movies stitched together. You’ve got I Am Legend, The Last of Us, 28 Days/Weeks Later, Contagion and plenty of other familiar genre elements. The movie never really reinvents any of them. That’s not automatically a problem—I’d happily watch another great post-apocalyptic survival movie—but if you’re going to give me something I’ve seen a hundred times before, you need to give me a reason to care.
The biggest thing holding this movie back is the script.
It’s based on a book, and I haven’t read it, so I can’t speak to how faithful the adaptation is. But somebody needed to go back and really punch this screenplay up. The dialogue can be pretty rough, and the movie doesn’t give us enough information about the virus or how the world actually fell apart. Hig has flashbacks and memories of his wife, who was pregnant when she died, but I kept wanting more. Give me one flashback to day one of the pandemic. Show me how society collapsed. Give me a little more context about what happened to the world.
Instead, we’re dropped into this world after everything has already happened.
Elordi and Qualley are both actors I like, but I’m still not completely sold on either of them here. And again, I don’t necessarily blame them. When you have a weak script, it becomes much easier to notice the difference between someone like Brolin or Pearce, who can sell almost anything, and younger performers who are still developing that kind of presence.
The movie also looks fantastic. Of course it does—it’s Ridley Scott. The airplane sequences and the shots of the landscapes are beautiful, and there are moments where you really want to see this thing on the biggest screen possible. Unfortunately, The Dog Stars could have popped a little more in IMAX, but The Odyssey is basically occupying those screens forever.
There’s also a strange emotional problem with the movie. One of the biggest emotional moments involves Jasper, Hig’s dog, and anybody who’s watched a post-apocalyptic movie knows exactly where this is going. The second you introduce the beloved dog, you’re thinking, “Oh God, they’re going to kill the dog.” And when it finally happens, I wanted to feel devastated. Instead, I found myself more frustrated with the filmmaking. The score simply wasn’t giving the moment enough emotional weight. Sometimes you need the music to help carry the audience into a moment, and here I just wasn’t feeling it.
That’s ultimately my biggest issue with The Dog Stars: I wanted to care more.
There’s a decent movie here. It’s entertaining enough, it looks great, there are some cool action sequences, and having Josh Brolin and Guy Pearce around gives the whole thing a much-needed shot of energy. Elordi and Qualley are perfectly fine, and the premise is solid.
But we’ve seen this movie before.
We’ve seen the lonely survivor. We’ve seen the dead wife. We’ve seen the beloved dog. We’ve seen the virus wipe out civilization. We’ve seen the violent groups of survivors. We’ve seen the strange post-apocalyptic societies. We’ve seen all of it.
The Dog Stars doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, and unfortunately, the script isn’t strong enough to make those familiar pieces feel fresh. It’s passable, it’s entertaining, and I’m glad I saw it in a theater. But I wouldn’t want to watch this one at home, because I have a feeling I’d be completely checked out.
Ridley Scott is still Ridley fucking Scott, and I’ll always be interested in whatever he does next. But The Dog Stars is ultimately a case of a great director, two terrific veteran actors, two promising younger stars and a decent premise being held back by a screenplay that needed a lot more work.
The Dog Stars = 64/100
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