The Dog Stars - Movie Review

The Movie: The Dog Stars

The Director: Ridley Scott

The Cast: Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, Benedict Wong, Guy Pearce

The Story: In a post-apocalyptic world, a virus wipes out humanity. Survivors face roaming scavengers called Reapers. Protagonist Hig, a pilot, survived the flu but lost his wife.

The Rating: 5 / 10

The Review:

The marketing campaign for a movie can often be a very tricky thing, especially when studios and distributors are looking to prioritize first weekend ticket sales. It can be easy for the people in charge of those types of things to make the movie look like something different than what it actually is in an attempt to bring in an audience that otherwise would not have been as interested. Sadly, that turns out to be the case with this film as it's definitely not the action-packed thrill ride that's been promised in the trailers that I've seen.

Over the years, Ridley Scott has become one of those directors that is either 100% on top of his game or seriously misfires when it comes to putting out a quality, entertaining product. I mean, this guy has been responsible for all time classics like Alien, The Martian, Blade Runner, and Gladiator just to name a few and he's also turned in some real duds like Alien: Covenant and Gladiator 2, both sequels which is probably no coincidence. I'll always be a big fan of the director and his incredible catalog of films, but this movie will most likely be completely forgotten within a couple weeks.

At face value, this project should work. The cast is really fantastic, the story seems like it has a lot going for it, and of course, the director has more often than not put out quality work. I really like Jacob Elordi, I know him mainly from Euphoria, he has a bright future as an action star and Margaret Qualley has established herself as a force to be reckoned with after her breakout performance in Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood. Unfortunately, their talents, along with the rest of the cast, are all wasted in a story that turned out to be nothing more than a redundant snooze fest filled with moments that all have all been done better in other movies.

For some reason, movies that have a premise that involves the aftermath of a pandemic seem to have trouble getting a good story off the ground. They usually end up being pretty basic survival stories that don't offer much beyond that and, for me, this movie is now the number one prime example of that playing out. Watching the movie was just such a weird experience because nothing really happens of any significance and then, when the writers attempt to shake things up a bit, things get super weird, the whole thing becomes a completely different movie, and then just as suddenly it goes right back to what it started out as.

The one redeeming quality this movie has is that it looks absolutely beautiful. The scenes where Elordi's character is flying around in his beat-up Cessna airplane are tailor made for the big screen experience and are a lot of the reason why the theatrical experience is such an important aspect of cinema. The press screening that was held for us was in an AMC IMAX theater and the mountainous landscapes and epic visuals were just so beautiful to look at. It's sad that those moments were wasted having to be part of this movie that unfortunately brings nothing else to the table.

This could have been a really fun action-adventure movie, but the end result was just a lifeless journey through a whole bunch of nothing. It's kind of an action movie but not really. It's sort of a love story but not really. It's maybe a cautionary tale but never lands on anything important or relevant. I'm still not really sure what this movie was or why it exists and I'll be happy to have forgotten about it not long after posting this review.

Thank you for reading this review, let's hope the next one features a much better movie to talk about. Either way, I hope you enjoyed reading and I hope this helps you decide whether or not you want to see the movie without taking anything away from the experience if you do.