Movie Review: The Dog Stars

By John Corrado

The Dog Stars is the latest film from director Ridley Scott, a legendary filmmaker now in his late eighties who has earned his stripes with a number of classics over the decades, but whose output has been decidedly more hit or miss in recent years.

This post-apocalyptic drama, which is adapted from a novel of the same name by author Peter Heller, is itself uneven. The narrative treads a familiar path, and the screenplay adapted by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) lacks some complexity.

But there are some decent survival thriller elements to it, and the film is elevated by a solid cast. This means that The Dog Stars is modestly more hit than miss, even if it doesn’t fully feel like a late-career revival for Scott.

The film is set in a world where a pandemic wiped out most of the population, leaving the remaining survivors scattered about and largely fending for themselves. Our protagonist is Hig (Jacob Elordi), a former mechanic who lost everything to the illness, and now lives off the grid in rural Colorado with Bangley (Josh Brolin), a gruff survivalist and father figure who shoots trespassers on site. They live in an abandoned airport hangar which they must closely guard from feral scavengers referred to as “roaches,” who are more like the War Boys in Mad Max.

Hig explores the skies flying around in his Cessna, with his trustee canine companion Jasper always by his side. He is trying to reach the source of a mysterious signal that he hears coming over the radio, convinced that there might still be a civilization out there. The journey involves meeting Cima (Margaret Qualley), a young woman who lives on a farm with her dad (Guy Pearce), who shares the same gruff attitude and survival instincts as Bangley.

When The Dog Stars is focused on being a stripped down survival drama following Elordi’s Hig flying around in his biplane and exploring this post-apocalyptic world, it does have an intriguing quality to it. There is some nice aerial photography courtesy of cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, who does a good job of capturing these wide open landscapes. The rural backdrops provide a sense of isolation and danger.

But the screenplay often feels pretty thin, and when the characters do speak, the dialogue itself can be somewhat cheesy. At just under two hours, it’s easy to feel like elements of the plot are under-baked. This is especially true of a much weirder detour in the last act with a tonal shift that doesn’t fully work, and a role for Allison Janney that feels entirely underdeveloped. It’s a part of the movie that feels like it doesn’t go on long enough.

The film is carried by decent performances from the main cast members. Even if Brolin and Pearce are largely playing variations of their usual roles, they do it well. Qualley has an appealing screen presence and natural charm as a possible love interest with a little more independence. Benedict Wong also has a brief supporting role as a Mennonite father, whose conservative lifestyle with a whole pack of kids might just be the key to repopulating the world.

Elordi’s brooding portrayal of Hig provides an appealing guide through these post-apocalyptic landscapes, the young actor’s screen presence and chiselled jaw carrying much of the film. It should also be noted that Jasper, the dog in The Dog Stars, steals the screen and provides the moments that draw the biggest emotional reactions. The bond between Hig and Jasper is one of the strongest parts of the film’s first half.

The film can veer towards sentimentality, but who can really blame Scott for that at this point in his career? If the film is more focused on being a low-key character drama about navigating grief in a post-apocalyptic world, Scott does still stage a couple of decent action set-pieces – including one siege involving night vision – that show he still has some juice left in the tank.

For all the weight of Scott’s legacy behind it, The Dog Stars is ultimately a film that feels perfectly fine. Is it a new classic? No. It’s uneven and somewhat formulaic. But for most of its running time, the film is entertaining enough and satisfying enough to justify itself.