Ridley Scott has had his fair share of hits and misses.
For every Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator and The Martian, there’s a Kingdom of Heaven, A Good Year, whatever The Counselor was, Napoleon, and an underpowered Glad-II-ator.
No bad word shall be said about Alien: Covenant or House of Gucci. The former is a lot better than you remember, and the latter is a camp masterpiece, and that’s that.
Frustratingly, his latest film sits very comfortably in the ‘miss’ category.
Based on Peter Heller’s 2012 novel of the same name, The Dog Stars stars Jacob Elordi as Hig, your ridiculously handsome everyman and former pilot trying to get by in a post-pandemic America. Following a viral apocalypse which wiped out most of the human population, including his wife, our hero survives by scavenging supplies with his dog, Jasper. Which is a lovely name for a dog. Well done there.
Unlike his Marine-turned-survivalist compadre Bangley (Josh Brolin), Hig clings onto hope that humanity will find a way. He flies his Cessna plane looking for signs of life and is drawn to a mysterious radio signal, which leads him to a military base. There, he meets Cima (Margaret Qualley) and her gruff father (Guy Pearce), and starts to think of a life beyond survival.
However, feral gangs of “reapers” threaten any future plans…
Whatever your past directorial credentials may be and as impressive as it is to still be behind the camera at the age of 88, there’s no excuse for making the post-apocalypse boring and this derivative.
There’s some 28 Days / Weeks / Years Later in The Dog Stars, a bit of I Am Legend, echoes to Mad Max, and even some Fallout for good measure. All great touchpoints, but they don’t coalesce into something remotely interesting. They just make you wish you were watching a film either scary, thrilling or profound enough to retain your attention.
As it is, The Dog Stars wants to be both an introspective character study and a post-apocalyptic actioner, and fails in both respects. It’s too uneventful to be exciting, not scary enough to be impactful, and too puddle-deep to be insightful. Worse, this is a film that doesn’t say much of anything about the apocalypse, societal collapse, or shared grief. Unlike the source material, Mark L. Smith’s script never grapples with its themes and instead chooses to underdevelop the characters every step of the way.
Aside from Erik Messerschmidt’s stunning cinematography, the interminably slow pace led me to focus on an unexpected element in The Dog Stars: facial hair. Specifically, Josh Brolin’s goated goatee.
Boy, can that man do facial follicles.
Few men can. Idris Elba can. Adam Driver cannot. Ethan Hawk is a master. Orlando Bloom is not. Christian Bale can grow a wild one. Timothée Chalamet may get there one day.
It’s a subtle art, and Brolin – and not for the first time – sports a majestic one here, giving grizzled uncle energy that made me think: If it is the end of the world as we know it, I will find solace in staying away from radio signals and keeping close to your scraggly growth, which assures me that I’ll be safe.
So, unless you’re in the market to watch a smouldering Jacob Elordi wearing a Carhartt jacket and staring into the distance – or looking to start a goatee appreciation society like I am seriously considering – stay away from this overlong and bizarrely bland effort from a filmmaker who’ll hopefully give us one last great film before another pandemic hits.
The Dog Stars is out in cinemas now.
Video editor • Amber Louise Bryce