Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Starring: Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, Benedict Wong, Guy Pearce
If 28 Years Later played like two episodes of The Walking Dead stitched together, Ridley Scott's new addition to the overcrowded post-apocalyptic sub-genre goes one step further. The Dog Stars plays like three episodes of The Walking Dead stitched together. There are no zombies here but Scott's film, adapted from a novel by Peter Heller, gives us zombie surrogates in the form of "ferals," survivors who behave like the maniacal lunatics who roam the world of the Mad Max series. This is a pointlessly generic depiction of a post-apocalyptic world that doesn't have a single original idea.
The movie can't even be bothered establishing its setting. There is mention of a flu and we're left to fill in the blanks. To be honest, you have to admire this admission on the film's part that it can't be bothered doing anything new and just hopes you'll go with the flow.
The opening act plays like a second rate I Am Legend knockoff as survivor Hig (Jacob Elordi) flies his Cessna into a depopulated Denver, accompanied by his dog Jasper (given the amount of canine peril in 2026 movies, the page views at doesthedogdie.com must be off the scale). While scavenging for supplies Hig is attacked by a survivor. When Hig wounds him, the man tells him of a new breed of feral survivors who are laying waste to everything in their path.
Hig returns to the plot of land he shares with Bangley (Josh Brolin), a former marine with a "shoot first, inquire later" approach to staying alive. This has indeed kept himself and Hig alive, but the latter is beginning to grow uncomfortable with this misanthropic worldview. Having heard a muffled radio broadcast purporting to come from the town of Grand Junction, Hig leaves Bangley and sets off, hoping to find a new life.
In its second act, The Dog Stars puts its survivalist action aside and settles into the easy grooves of late style Clint Eastwood. You could easily imagine a young Eastwood playing Elordi's role as he finds his plane stuck in a remote area that as luck would have it, is right beside the homestead of a pretty young widow (Margaret Qualley's Cima) and her gruff father (Guy Pearce's Pops). Pops is mistrustful of this handsome stranger, but Cima is positively drooling. For about a half hour, The Dog Stars becomes a clichéd yet oddly compelling drama about two broken people finding the possibility of a future together. There are echoes of classic westerns, with Hig the rugged stranger who seduces the school marm while feeling he is unable to settle down because something in his past keeps gnawing at him. The romance between Hig and Cima is so innocent it makes The Dog Stars resemble a product of the 1950s. There is even a politically incorrect sequence involving a marauding mob modelled on Native Americans.
The final act devolves into the classic post-apocalyptic trope of a thriving community that appears to offer possible sanctuary, but of course some dark shit is going down behind the scenes. This sequence gives Alison Janney the chance to ham it up as a character that would be more at home in John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.
Everything in The Dog Stars is stale and second hand, scavenged from better movies, TV shows and novels. There are no surprises, unless you began consuming media a week ago. It doesn't even interrogate the ideas it co-opts. Brolin's Bangley is established as a surrogate for the protagonist of Richard Matheson's 'I Am Legend', who is so concerned with killing everything that moves that he fails to realise that the rest of the world views him as the bad guy. But the movie lets Bangley off the hook, whereas several seemingly innocent people are killed by the characters we're supposed to view as the "heroes." Late on our "heroes" commit an outright atrocity in the dubious name of self defence, and there is a distinct lack of soul searching over what they've done.
As unoriginal and disinterested in its own themes as The Dog Stars is, it's rarely dull. Scott keeps the story moving and occasionally reminds us that we're in the hands of a very capable filmmaker, even if his heart doesn't seem to be entirely in this particular project. There is a thrilling action sequence involving what might be the best use of night vision goggles I've seen. Elordi, Qualley and Pearce do a lot with little, and their collective chemistry helps us to root for their paper thin characters, at least until they decide to commit an act that even the Third Colorado Cavalry would consider a tad extreme.
The Dog Stars is in UK/ROI cinemas from August 26th.
