It’s been a theme this year of post apocalyptic films that have tried to do something different. We have the incredibly 28 Days Later : The Bone Temple, but for every great Bone Temple, there’s a Greenland 2 : Migration. While we were hoping for for something surprising with director Ridley Scott in the directing chair for The Dog Stars, unfortunately this film is just mid, it’s not even so bad it’s funny or offensive, it’s just plain boring with a middling script that plays more like an open world video game than a 2 hour film. Fortunately it’s not all bad, the location shooting is gorgeous and there is some serious star power here with Jacob Elordi, Benedict Wong, Margaret Qualley, Josh Brolin, Alison Janney and Guy Pearce all doing the best they can with what little they have been given script wise.
The Dog Stars is based on the 2012 novel of the same name by author Peter Heller, the adaptation stars Jacob Elordi as Hig, a mechanic who is stranded with his german shephard dog after an unknown virus has taken over the world and wiped most of humanity out. He lives in a compound in the forst with Bangley (Josh Brolin) a doomsday prepper soldier type who relies on Hig for supplies and he fulfils the muscle and protection part of their unspoken deal. Hig does supply runs into a capital city with his small plane, making stops to an Amish colony along the way (led by Benedict Wong) when a militia group called “The Reapers” threaten their hidden paradise, Hig sets off to Grand Junction, a city eminating a signal that promises to be far away from the reach of the Reapers.
On paper, you can see why the studio greenlit this film, a famous director, some massive star power and a midly successful novel, surely audiences will be clamouring to see this. While this studio thinking makes sense on paper, the reality of the films final edit leaves much to be desired. The film has an almost video game style plot, characters go from one point to another, find out some info, help some locals and then head to the next location, do the same thing, get some more information and then head back to the original point for a final showdown and end with a guitar playing singalong moment that leaves that feeling of everything’s going to be ok. The film may have been better served as a Disney + series, allowing for characters to have more of a fleshed out arc, there are even some crazy similarities to The Last of Us game and TV series (even down to the background of the wrecked city on this movie’s poster and similar font style and colours!). This could easily have been a part 3 to that series with new characters and easily have fit into that universe, just without that Craig Mazin quality.
There are flashes of Scott’s traditional action movie trademarks, there is a tense battle that uses nightvision for a character to silently take out enemies. It’s a flashy and cool effect but like the couple of things that work with this movie, the moment is very short lived. You can see how if this was released closer to the book launch, how audiences may have had more of an appetite for this, but it a year of The Odyssey, Obsession and Spider-Man : Brand New Day, it just doesn’t pass the pub test. This opening weekend will tell if audiences are keen for this, but like more recent Ridley Scott films, this one may have been better left alone.
The Dog Stars is in cinemas from August 27.
