If there is a filmmaker who refuses to let old age slow him down, it is Ridley Scott. At 88 years old, he is still out there making a wide variety of films. Though the past decade of his career has been decidedly hit-or-miss, I still look forward to seeing what he has up his sleeve. With his latest feature, The Dog Stars, Scott turns his attention to people struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. And if The Dog Stars proves anything, it is that Ridley Scott is only as good as the script placed in front of him.
After the world’s population has been ravaged by a pandemic, Hig (Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein) lives a lonesome existence in a Colorado airplane hangar with his dog and Bangley (Josh Brolin, Weapons) a dour gunman he has befriended. When a mysterious transmission comes through on the radio while he’s flying his old Cessna, it sparks a hunt for the provenance of the sound.
The Dog Stars is at its best when it is at its most minimalist. When the film is simply following Hig around post-apocalyptic Colorado as he flies around in his Cessna, collecting supplies, admiring the stars, hunting in the woods, and occasionally killing off some raiders, the film is surprisingly satisfying. It scratches a competency-porn itch that is simply irresistible to me. During these sequences, there is very little dialogue, with the only sounds we hear being the film’s Americana score and the sounds of the Colorado wilderness. Sure, it is not the most thematically interesting, nor does it offer much in the way of meaningful character development. But it is rare to see a post-apocalyptic film focus on the mundane routine of simply trying to survive, so I gladly welcomed this perspective. Way too many films in this genre become caught up in the spectacle of survival, so there is something refreshing about watching someone simply go about their daily routine in a world that has already ended.
Sadly, the moment The Dog Stars steps away from its minimalist survival filmmaking and turns its attention toward the spectacle of survival, the decay of humanity, and the desperate need for salvation and community, the film becomes as clichéd as you would expect. The Dog Stars shows us what happens to humanity when society collapses. We are shown pockets of society where humanity has found a way to survive and some means of salvation. We are shown people who have gone entirely mad and are drawn only to chaos and destruction. We are shown raiders who slaughter entire families simply trying to get by. We are shown hardened survivalists who don’t care about others, only themselves. We are shown people who promise salvation but are, in reality, barbaric.
These are all the groups that Hig runs into as he flies his Cessna around Colorado, looking for some remnants of an orderly society. Along the way, you would expect him to acknowledge what he already has in front of him and be grateful for it. Or at least learn that society is not going back to the way it was and that he would have to accept what society has become. Sadly, The Dog Stars does none of this. Hig doesn’t go on any real character arc where he learns to acknowledge the community he already has in front of him or that salvation doesn’t really exist in a post-apocalyptic world. While he does get over his grief and learns to accept the dirtiness of survival, The Dog Stars follows all of the routine clichés we have seen from this genre.
Sure, Ridley Scott directs this film very well. He shows a different side of his directorial artistry, proving that he is still a very capable filmmaker who can excel at minimalist storytelling. However, when the script decides to barge into what could have been a minimalist portrait of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, the film sadly devolves into clichés. Sure, the actors are capable in their roles, especially given the paper-thin material they are working with. But sadly, that can’t save just how forgettable and clichéd the film is. It is just another in a long line of survival thrillers that copy and paste from the other films within its genre.
My Rating: C+
The Dog Stars is now in theatres nationwide.
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