Whenever I see a movie about the apocalypse, I get the feeling that I should learn how to fly a plane, you know, just in case. But that’s expensive and takes a lot of time that I could otherwise spend writing film reviews, so I guess I’ll have to hunker down and hope for the best.
But The Dog Stars really made me wish I had a spare plane lying around.
Based on Peter Heller’s 2012 novel of the same name, Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars is a gorgeous and compelling exploration of the post-apocalypse, but it leans a little too heavily on genre tropes and feels like it should have been made 20 years ago.
Jacob Elordi plays Hig, a former mechanic who lives in an abandoned airfield outside of Denver with his dog Jasper and a former soldier, Bangley (Josh Brolin). Following a world-ending viral outbreak, Hig flies to Denver to gather supplies and make occasional deliveries to a local Mennonite community. At the same time, Bangley focuses on defending their home from other survivors and roaches. When Hig picks up a radio signal from “Grand Central,” he decides to brave the unknown and discover if any other survivors have managed to reclaim a more civilized way of life.
The Dog Stars is a film I’ve been aware of for months now through trailers, posters, and standees in movie theatres, but it’s not one I was especially interested in seeing. I like everyone in the cast, and I am a fan of most of Ridley Scott’s work, but having never read the book, I didn’t feel especially drawn in. I prefer it when trailers refrain from giving away most of the plot or the best scenes. However, the trailers for The Dog Stars were so bare-bones that I had little context for the film, aside from the fact it’s set in a post-apocalyptic world.
But I really enjoyed The Dog Stars.
What stuck me most is how Scott crafts a world that envelops you in its loneliness without ever feeling empty. Hig’s flight above the mountains and forests is isolated, but the strikingly bold rock formations and lush green trees are so gorgeous that the world still feels full of life, just not human life. The airfield may seem tranquil and barren, but the ever-present threat of roaches lingering just beyond the tree line, waiting to attack, creates a baseline of tension and vigilance. I was actually worried that some characters would not make it to the end of the film. While many other stories about the end of the world are saturated with bleak, cynical views of the world and human nature, The Dog Stars is a story that never loses hope. Scott doesn’t shy away from the brutality and harsh realities that a collapsed world may bring, but that doesn’t mean he can’t hope for the best.
Elordi is much more subdued in this role than he has been in other films I’ve seen him in, like Frankenstein and Saltburn. As Hig, he’s complacent and distant, often lacking the vigilance I would expect a survivor to demonstrate as Bangley does. It could be because his wife’s death haunts the character, or because Hig believes in retaining some sense of civility towards his fellow man. Still, his more open, less aggressive attitude helps him stand out amongst most of the other cast members. Elordi is likable and charming as Hig; he’s a character we can easily root for, but in the context of his other roles, it’s not one that especially sticks out.
Margaret Qualley plays Cima, a medical resident-turned-farmer-turned Hig’s love interest. Like Hig, Cima is kind and trusting, yet resilient. Like Elordi, this is one of Qualley’s less intense roles, and though she’s charming and natural in it, it’s not a character that stands out on her resume. She and Elordi have incredible and immediate chemistry. The Dog Stars is a film largely defined by their relationship, but it won’t define their careers.
Bangley is another standard Josh Brolin role. He’s grumpy, violent, and so much fun to watch. Where Cima is a perfect complement to Hig’s stubbornly rosy outlook, Bangley’s bitter attitude is the perfect foil. His violently final way of dealing with problems provides some necessary action. However, many of Bangley’s scenes feel disjointed and disconnected from the rest of the film, as if Scott didn’t really know how to incorporate them and just stuck them in at random. Guy Pearce plays Pops, Cima’s farmer father and another Josh Brolin role. Like Bangley, Pops is mistrustful, focused on survival and ultimately is won over by Hig’s earnestness and usefulness. Brolin and Pearce are excellent as always, but their roles are so similar that it detracts from each of them. There are some differences between the two men, but in terms of personality they are still practically interchangeable.
My one complaint about The Dog Stars is that the story is stuffed full of tropes and influences that you can see any twists and plot points from a mile away. The opening minutes feel like they were ripped directly from 2007’s I Am Legend. The climax is extraordinarily predictable, largely because it’s a trope we’ve seen in countless other post-apocalypse flicks like The Road, The Walking Dead and The Last of Us, to name a few. Of course, the two conventionally attractive, single characters with similar traumas are going to fall in love. As I said, I’m not familiar with the book, so Scott might be faithfully adapting the source material and my complaints are better reserved for Heller’s writing.
None of this makes The Dog Stars a bad film, but it feels like a film 20 years too late. If it had come out in the late 2000s or even the early 2010s, when stories about the end of the world were all the rage, Scott’s film might have felt more at home and even more profound. In the present day, following a very real, world-spanning virus that, for many, seemed to bring about the end of civilization, The Dog Stars loses much of its impact, and the only thing it has to say seems to be that “we can still be nice people after the world ends.”
Ridley Scott’s adaptation of The Dog Stars has a lot to like. Gorgeous cinematography and an excellent music underscore solid performances by the cast in a richly crafted world full of tension and brutality. Unfortunately, the plot follows an all-too-familiar blueprint that dampens the impact Scott might otherwise have achieved, turning it into a paint-by-numbers post-apocalypse.
Regardless, Jasper is a good boy who deserves all the treats, head scratches and belly rubs.
Muses of Media 
Leave a comment