Add The New York Post on Google movie review THE DOG STARS Running time: 118 minutes. Rated R (strong language, violence). In theaters Aug. 28.
There is a whole genre of films that can best be summed up as “It’s the end of the world, so let’s go on a hike.”
The “A Quiet Place” franchise fits snugly in there. So do the new “28 Years Later” movies and much of “The End We Start From” starring Jodie Comer. On the small screen, the sensational HBO series “Station Eleven” is another one.
The latest lacking variation that’s very much running on the fumes of the much better aforementioned titles is “The Dog Stars” from the once-great director (and now my tormentor) Ridley Scott.
Their rough plots are all the same. Some cataclysmic event occurs (alien invasion, deadly virus, natural disaster), and thus it’s decided that the safest place to survive is in the woods. Only there’s a twist — the forest is not so nice after all. Extraterrestrials, zombies and bad guys, it turns out, also enjoy the fresh air and the sweet scent of pine sap.
And so, the main character must venture off to a rumored haven of humanity that’s miraculously been cushioned from the horrors of the apocalypse.
I’d say “rinse and repeat,” but the people in these movies are always very dirty.
Scott’s film, which is based on the novel by Peter Heller, doesn’t add much to that simple equation — just a cool plane and a cute canine.
Let me set the scene. A disease has ravaged the world and hardly anybody is left.
The pilot is Hig (Jacob Elordi), a soft-spoken former Denver, Colo., mechanic who lives in nature near the town of Erie with a grizzly Marine named Bangley (Josh Brolin). Hig flies a yellow Cessna daily with his pup Jasper as a passenger to gather supplies and survey the area — including traumatically popping in on the house he once shared with his dead wife.
Manly-ish sensitivity is both Elordi’s forte and also the answer to the question “What does an airborne widower have in common with Frankenstein’s monster and Heathcliff?”. The Aussie actor is good here, as usual, wielding a downcast charm like a cafeteria loner who could also get crowned Prom King.
But the lumpy screenplay doesn’t allow him to go anywhere emotionally. The only scene that makes us feel anything at all involves the dog. And some people will automatically hate that moment. Considering this is a movie about a man’s quest to thrive in the wake of a mass extinction, it’s awfully nonchalant.
One day, Hig hears a fuzzy radio communication from Grand Junction, a supposedly peopled community about 300 miles away. He decides there’s more to life than simply making it to the next morning, and he sets off on a path so cinematically well-tread that paving it would be redundant.
The first half of Scott’s movie has an appealingly rugged look, with aerial shots of mountains and a camping-trip-meets-doomsday-prepper atmosphere.
Yet while it’s proficient and easy on the eyes, the film doesn’t have much style. You’d never know “The Dog Stars” came from the director of “Alien,” “Blade Runner,” “Gladiator” and “The Martian.” Of course, the same could be said for the wretched “House of Gucci,” “Napoleon” and “The Last Duel.”
And, while I’m generally against too much exposition in movies, “The Dog Stars” takes vagueness to a lazy extreme.
For instance, there is a screaming tribe of baddies covered in tattoos who wield crossbows and travel on horseback. Um, who the hell are they?
There is also a group of Mennanites who are depicted much in the same way “The Lord of the Rings” imagined the Hobbits of the Shire. What’s their deal?
Narratively, the second half is a shambles. Hig meets Cima (Margaret Qualley), a lonely woman who’s elated that a 6-foot-5 would-be model has landed outside her home. She lives with her protective dad Pops (Guy Pearce, looking confusingly similar to Brolin), who is not.
They dawdle for a while and then head off to explore an enclave run by a creepy Allison Janney. The strange scene is another exhausted trope of post-apocalyptic films: And now for the part with the quirky, violent cult.
When “The Dog Stars” ends, with a true groaner nod to the astrological meaning of the title, there’s an unshakable annoyance that not much has happened — like a plane that’s been forced to turn around and go back to its origin.
This is not Scott’s worst movie in recent years. “Gucci” and “Napoleon” were full-on embarrassments. “Dog Stars” is OK until it falls apart. But the director has really lost it in the decade since “The Martian.” He’s making dog after dog.
