Ridley Scott, known for blockbuster hit films like “Alien,” “Gladiator,” “The Bladerunner” and “The Martian,” gave audiences his 30th feature this past week, “The Dog Stars.” Unfortunately, this one did not make my blockbuster list, nor is it impressing others having earned a still dropping score of 38% on Rotten Tomatoes.
“The Dog Stars” is an adaptation of the 2012 Peter Heller novel. Upon further research, it would appear that avid readers were unsure how this book could become a film, as the novel itself was slow-paced and lacked a direct message. The trailer of this movie framed the film as an action-packed-post-apocalyptic-survivalist story, when in actuality the film lived up to the dismal messageless plot that the book also provided.
Starring Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qually, Josh Brolin, Guy Pearce and Allison Janney, this film had all the stardom potential to be a killer flick. Unfortunately, not even the stacked cast could improve this film’s terrible writing. At times I even wished that the film would have taken a note from other films like “A Quiet Place,” and leaned into the silence, letting the actors convey the story with expression and body language. Instead, we got a bland story that relied too heavily on our sympathy toward pets, repetitive scenic drone footage of a 1956 Cessna 182 and whatever lingering feelings we may have as a society post the 2019 COVID pandemic.
The backstories for each character were lacking, if not entirely missing. Giving viewers little to no stakes in caring about our protagonists, Hig (Elordi), Bangley (Brolin) or Cima (Qualley).
The writing, as mentioned, was so poor that the predictability was palpable within my theater. We all knew what was about to happen, we knew how the characters would react and therefore any chance of entertainment or emotional stakes were diminished. Truly, anyone who has ever watched a post-apocalyptic show like “The Walking Dead,” or played a single video game where the setting was post America as we know it because of some sort of virus, could spot the tropes from a mile away in this film. Even the plot twist felt lacking, given even less of an explanation or backstory than the characters, it felt like it was tossed in for the sake of simply being what happens next in the story.
The only way I could imagine this story being told in a newly imaged way, would be if it was made into a series where the audience got a glimpse into the characters’ various back stories prior to the flu that takes out the majority of humanity. This would help us understand and care why the people left are making the choices they are. Even then, I could still see the argument that this type of story has been told in pretty much every way and without a unique moral message to the audience, the point is rather dim as to why one would retell this same type of story again.
Clearly, this one missed the mark on my spicy scale, earning a 1 out of 5 and a hard skip if you were thinking about seeing it in theaters. Stay tuned for next week as I finally get to dive into the spooky seasonal flicks taking us into fall and the Halloween spirit.