'The Dog Stars': Ridley Scott’s apocalyptic journey cruises on craft, but runs low on fuel

Rating: ★★☆☆ ☆(2 out of 5 stars)

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Starring: Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, Guy Pearce

Runtime: 118 minutes

There is a moment early in The Dog Stars, Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Peter Heller’s 2012 novel, where a vintage 1956 Cessna 182 banks cleanly over the ragged, desaturated spine of the Colorado wilderness. Captured with sweeping poise, the shot carries the effortless, widescreen authority that has defined Scott’s cinema across six decades. At this point in his prolific career, Scott directs big-canvased world-building with an ease that borders on second nature. Every lens flare feels earned; every rust-eaten corrugated hangar roof looks like it has weathered ten harsh winters.

Yet as that small plane glides through the silence of an emptied continent, a familiar sense of narrative fatigue settles in beneath the film's polished surface.

Set nine years after a virulent flu pandemic and scorching climate shifts wiped out over ninety-nine percent of the global population, The Dog Stars follows Hig (Jacob Elordi), a gentle, grieving mechanic-turned-pilot. Hig spends his days patrolling an abandoned airport perimeter in his faithful plane "The Beast," accompanied only by his aging Australian cattle dog, Jasper, and an uneasy alliance with Bangley (Josh Brolin), a heavily armed, misanthropic survivalist. When a mysterious, crackling voice comes over Hig's radio transmitter from beyond the "point of no return," Hig risks the fragile sanctuary they have built to fly into uncharted territory.

If the setup sounds intimately familiar, that is because modern audiences have spent the better part of two decades wading through nearly every conceivable variation of this ruined terrain. We have trudged across the desolate ash of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, dodged fungi-encrusted horrors in The Last of Us, watched eleven seasons and endless spin-offs of The Walking Dead, and braced for the infected across multiple iterations of the 28 Days / 28 Years Later timeline. The post-collapse subgenre is no longer a fresh canvas for existential dread; it is an overcrowded cul-de-sac of familiar tropes—the lonely scavenging runs, the feral bands of scavengers lurking in the timber, the tragic memories of dead spouses captured in sunlit flashbacks, and the cynical old-timer preaching that trust is a death sentence.

Screenwriter Mark L. Smith does his best to trim the lyrical stream-of-consciousness prose of Heller’s novel into a clean cinematic track, but the screenplay rarely escapes the shadow of its predecessors. There are only so many ways to stage a standoff near a dusty water pump or articulate the quiet pain of a world stripped of community before the proceedings begin to feel rote.

What keeps The Dog Stars aloft, however, is a strong ensemble that injects a genuine pulse into well-trodden territory. At the center stands Jacob Elordi, who continues to solidify his standing as one of mainstream cinema’s most intriguing leading men. Elordi’s greatest asset here is his stillness; he plays Hig not as an action-hero survivor, but as a deeply melancholic, haunted soul who seems almost too fragile for the brutal world he inhabits. His towering frame is folded inward, weighed down by loss and the quiet indignity of surviving when better people perished. Where other actors might overplay the tearful introspection, Elordi conveys Hig’s yearning simply by gazing out of a cockpit window into an endless, empty sky. It's a role in which he could quickly become typecast: Frankenstein's brooding monster, Cathy's brooding Heathcliff and now, a brooding widower.

He is balanced by Josh Brolin, operating squarely in his element. Bangley is a man of blunt utility, barbed-wire instincts, and few words—in short, Josh Brolin being quintessential Josh Brolin. With a weathered scowl, a sniper rifle permanently propped on his shoulder, and a raspy pragmatism, Brolin does not reinvent the wheel, but he brings a grounded grit and dry humour to the role that prevents the film’s first half from slipping into pure doldrums. His chemistry with Elordi, rooted in mutual survival rather than affection, forms the film's sturdiest emotional pillar.

The real lightning bolt in the cast, however, is Allison Janney, who appears in a brief but indelible detour as Darlene. Janney delivers an uncanny, disquieting performance that completely shifts the air in the room, so much so that I thought we had crossed the rainbow and were no longer in Kansas. Playing a woman maintaining a hollow veneer of domesticity and professional cheer amid total ruin, Janney brings a manic, unpredictable edge that feels deeply unhinged yet heartbreakingly human. Her scenes linger long after the plane takes flight again, offering a glimpse of the more psychological, idiosyncratic film this might have been. But again, towards the end we see it's another survivalist trope.

Margaret Qualley and the ever-likeable Guy Pearce round out the second half with capable, grounded turns, bringing needed warmth to Hig’s lonely journey.

Behind the camera, Ridley Scott moves through the material with the muscular efficiency that has marked his late-career renaissance. Working alongside cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, Scott opts for wide, natural vistas and tactile, grime-caked environments over slick digital veneer. The aerial sequences are thrillingly staged, vibrating with the rattle of old aluminum, and free of CGI. Scott’s technical mastery is never in doubt; he directs the tense skirmishes and contemplative lulls with consummate ease.

Yet, for all its craft and fine performances, The Dog Stars never quite delivers the emotional wallop it promises. Because we have walked through so many cinematic wastelands before, the stakes rarely transcend the mechanics of standard survival drama. It is a solid, beautifully shot, and wonderfully acted genre piece, but one that ultimately struggles to say anything fundamentally new about the resilience of the human spirit.

The Dog Stars is a polished ride with great talent behind and in front of the lens, but viewers who feel they have already lived through too many cinematic apocalypses may find themselves checking their watches before reaching the horizon.