The Dog Stars

Six years after our own very real pandemic, Hollywood’s first Covid-inspired blockbuster manifests what many of us fantasised about during the darkest moments of the first lockdown – a broken world emptied of human life. Influenza is to blame in Ridley Scott’s film, which technically makes it an a-cough-alypse, and while there are bursts of Mad Max berserking, The Dog Stars is a surprisingly sensitive meditation on what we could have lost.

It’s May, 2035. On a deserted Colorado airfield, we meet two men and a dog clinging onto existence. Josh Brolin’s shoot-’em-burn-’em ex-Marine Bangley is hellbent on defending the compound from scavengers. Jacob Elordi’s pilot Hig can’t wait to escape, flying the Rockies for signs of civilisation with his faithful Belgian Malinois. A glitchy radio message appears to promise a new life, but when Hig crash-lands his battered Cessna near a remote ranch, he gets a shotgun welcome from its owner (Guy Pearce) and curiosity from his daughter (Margaret Qualley). 

From Blade Runner’s neon dystopia to Gladiator’s barbaric Rome, when it comes to immersive world-building, Scott is one of cinema’s great architects. But in The Dog Stars, we’re transported to a wasteland we’ve walked countless times before: tomb-like skyscrapers, overgrown freeways, feral packs of savages. In the ironically overpopulated genre of post-apocalyptic cinema, what makes The Dog Stars stand out from the pack? 

Superficially, Scott offers a few novel twists – notably, a bison stampede and an eerie shoot-out in phosphorescent night vision – but those anticipating a frantic, gnashing survival thriller might want to edit expectations. 

The drama is so leisurely it’s borderline Gone Fishin’ 

Interspersed with sweeping IMAX-ready shots of Hig’s plane puttering through the canyons, for long, unthreatening stretches, the drama is so leisurely it’s borderline Gone Fishin’ – a post-apocalyptic hangout movie where its characters stare at the stars, the plaintive score strums with acoustic guitar and they contemplate past lives lost. This isn’t a negative – in fact, it’s what makes The Dog Stars distinctive. 

Survival is a fiercely primal instinct, but it’s compassion that separates us from the animals. Hearing this from a director known for dark, cynical sci-fi nightmares is surprising to say the least. Scott clearly wanted to make an intimate humanist drama, and largely succeeds – until he loses his nerve.

When Hig’s finally locates the radio broadcast from a self-proclaimed utopia, things take a nosedive. If Allison Janney going Psycho Barbie in air stewardess cosplay sounds like a reel-switch from an entirely different movie, you’re sadly mistaken. It happens, and it really shouldn’t. The film just about recovers from its cartoonish misstep, but oh boy, does it kill the mood. 

It’s a shame, because Elordi is an endearingly brittle everyman, and Brolin is colossal. Face like a clenched fist, his surly survivalist steals every scene he stomps into. There’s not nearly enough of him. 

In cinemas worldwide Aug 28.