A man, a dog, and an aircraft are not enough to save “The Dog Stars” from its own familiar shape. Ridley Scott’s new film has striking scenery and a strong Josh Brolin performance, but it never breaks free of the form it borrows from.
Hig and His Dwelling
Jacob Elordi plays Hig, a man living out a lonely existence in an aircraft building in the mountains after a pandemic has reduced most of the population. His only companions are his dog and Bangley, a grim armed companion played by Brolin, who has become an uneasy friend. Elordi is fine in the part, but the film gives him little to do beyond stare into the middle distance and fly his old aircraft.
That old aircraft is the engine of the story. A mysterious broadcast comes through on the radio while he’s flying, and Hig becomes fixed on finding where it came from. It’s a promising hook. The problem is what Mark L. Smith’s script does with it once the search begins.
The Search for the Broadcast
The hunt for the broadcast’s source should carry the film. Instead it moves through scenes we have seen before in a dozen other after-the-end dramas. Margaret Qualley shows up as Cima, Guy Pearce as Pops, Allison Janney as Darlene, and Benedict Wong as Aaron, and each of them is competent without ever feeling essential. The film is filled with talent it does not know how to use.
Brolin is the one performer who gets something to work with. Bangley is written as a man whose threat and loyalty sit right next to each other, and Brolin plays that strain well. He’s the only element of “The Dog Stars” that feels particular rather than assembled from spare parts.
What Scott Gets Right
Scott has always known how to frame a wide view, and the mountains and skies here give him plenty to work with. The cinematography is truly beautiful — wide, cold, empty compositions that sell the idea of a world with almost nobody left in it. If the film worked as pure image, it would be a success.
It does not, though, because a film needs more than mood to sustain 119 minutes. The pacing is irregular, drawing out quiet moments that don’t earn the patience and then rushing through beats that needed room to land. A film this handsome should not feel this much like a burden to sit through.
Where the Script Falls Short
The core issue is that “The Dog Stars” never decides what kind of story it wants to be. It has the bones of a quiet drama about staying alive and the instincts of an action picture, and it never brings the two together. The result is a script that feels muddled rather than layered, tired rather than fresh.
Here’s how the film’s key elements rank, best to worst:
- Josh Brolin’s performance as Bangley
- The cinematography of the mountain scenery
- Jacob Elordi’s performance as Hig
- The mystery of the radio broadcast
- The script and pacing, in sum
That ordering tells you most of what you need to know. The things that work here are the surface and one performance. Everything below is thin.
A Familiar Story, Badly Served
Genre pieces like this live or die on whether they find something new to say inside a shape audiences already know. “The Dog Stars” does not. It’s a beautiful take on material we have seen plenty of times, and it’s too sad a picture and too tired to leave much of an impression once the credits roll.
Scott and Smith clearly want this to sit alongside the best examples of the genre. It does not get there. The film wastes a cast this filled and a premise this sound on a script that settles for the expected beat every time it has a choice to make.
Here’s how the opening played out:
| Detail | Figure |
|---|---|
| Length | 119 minutes |
| Domestic opening | $8 million |
| Opening total, all countries combined | about $19–21 million |
| Total box office | $33 million |
| Metacritic | 50/100 |
“The Dog Stars” wants to be a meditation on staying alive and connection at the end of the world. What it delivers instead is a handsome film with a fine cast that never finds its own reason to exist. Brolin’s Bangley and the mountain photography are worth seeing. The rest drifts.
