Ridley Scott doesn’t stop. His current projects in various stages of development include Gladiator III, an adaptation of Treasure Island with Hugh Jackman as Long John Silver, a biopic about the BeeGees, a Western called Freewalkers and a First World War movie, Covenant with Death. Meanwhile, here, at the age of 88, he presents his thirtieth feature.
His last two films were epic messes, Napoleon in 2023 and Gladiator II in 2024, the former taking a mere $224 million at the box office, the latter scoring $462 million. The Dog Stars, an adaptation of a 2012 post-apocalyptic novel by Peter Heller, turns out to be a much more modest, slower, almost ruminative adventure, even though almost every incident is hyped up from the novel.
Some years after the world has been devastated by a deadly virus (never explained), only scattered survivors remain, in small settlements, at constant risk of attack by desperate “scavengers” or more organised bands of “reapers”. These hostiles are not actual zombies, although they might as well as be. They have a Native American air, appearing on horseback, wearing warpaint and using bows and arrows.
In a leisurely intro we meet our hero, Hig (6’5” 29-year-old Aussie charmer, Jacob Elordi, moving on from the Creature in Frankenstein and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights). Hig’s a great bloke, despite his silly name. He lives in a fortified encampment at a former aerodrome in Eyrie, Colorado, in uneasy company with a fierce military veteran survivalist Bangley (no idea why so called either), played by Josh Brolin. This life positively suits Bangley, a misanthropic grump who enjoys knocking off intruders at a distance with his impressive weaponry.
Hig’s nice, though. Only reluctantly a killer, he used to be a mechanic, a masculine practicality even more advanced than that of Mark Watney, the Matt Damon character who so admirably scienced the shit out of everything in The Martian. Hig skillfully maintains an ancient yellow Cessna 182, in which he flies around keeping an eye out for trouble and doing good deeds, accompanied always by his adorable dog, Jasper, a Malinois with all that breed’s extraordinary intelligence, attentiveness and emotive vocalising.
Hig and Jasper go on risky runs into the deserted city, a scenario familiar to fans of The Walking Dead, to find sugary treats for Bangley and medicines for a little community of Mennonites, whose ailing children cherish them both, one little girl presenting them with a sweet drawing she has made of them together. Hig also repeatedly revisits the flat, complete with guitar and artwork, that he used to share with his wife, whom he misses so much that she comes alive again there whenever he visits, in the film’s worst scenes. But then he is sensitive. On his wobbly flights, accompanied by celestial music, over glorious mountain landscapes (filmed in the Dolomites in Italy), he likes to switch off the engine to glide in peace.
In short, Hig is perfect and Elordi’s fans will be entranced. (At the film’s London premiere, they greeted his appearance with high-pitched screaming, more head-splitting than anything I have heard before on such an occasion.)
Alas, much too early in the film for all dog-lovers, Jasper dies (fighting off attackers, rather than of old age as in the novel). Hig is distraught and decides to set off on his own in his little plane, wanting to know if there’s a more thriving community left anywhere. That’s never a good plan in post-apocalyptic and zombie movies – and The Dog Stars treads a well-worn path.
En route, the plane crash lands on the farm of another ex-military grump, Pops (Guy Pearce) and his exquisitely beautiful daughter Cima (Margaret Qualley). Pops wants to chase Hig off but Cima (again no idea why so named) likes him and they bond, while he repairs the plane and clears a runway, assisted by a sympathetic donkey.
In a dodgy episode, all three are tricked into landing at Grand Rapids airport, where an apparently friendly community turns out to be ruled over by an insane former air hostess (Allison Janney) still wearing her uniform, a scenario perhaps drawing on some of Scott’s worst experiences in First Class.
There is no third act, no outcome, although Hig does poetically explain the constellations to Cima and it may be that, while acknowledging the irreparability of their previous bereavements, this insanely photogenic couple eventually kiss? I couldn’t say.
The Dog Stars is a peculiarly ambling, slack production, despite its occasional eruptions of slaughter. It has the distinctive spontaneity that Scott’s approach – multiple cameras, little rehearsal, few takes – generates, but the premise of the film promises much more than it delivers. Nothing much is made of any connection to, say, Covid or genuine societal breakdown, beyond a vague sentiment that charmers like Hig and Cima deserve better. So it’s just another survivalist yarn that might as well have thrown in zombies, dinos or sharks: a minor coda to a major career, if coda it turns out to be.
[Further reading: Amanda Knox: “I’ve been a morality play my entire life”]
Content from our partners
Related
Join the debate
Subscribe here to commentThe fulm reviews are so good because they save us all wasting our money at the box office. Elordi will need to trade in his looks at some point to take acting lessons.