The Dog Stars review – Ridley Scott’s lethargic postapocalyptic drama is a misfire

An adaptation of Peter Heller’s 2012 novel never finds its footing with overly familiar survival beats and a glum lack of energy Looking towards the end of an August movie dumping ground littered with more unwanted trash than usual, there seemed to be a faint glimmer of hope, a shiny treasure poking out through the dusty mass of unnecessary sequels and sex purge romcoms .

Somehow, there was a $110m-budget adaptation of an acclaimed novel directed by Ridley Scott, led by a recently Oscar-nominated rising star with support from two Oscar-nominated actors and an Oscar-winner.

But why then would such a film be unveiled in between the summer blockbuster season and the upcoming deluge of prestige fall festival big hitters? A cursed weekend that’s recently been home to Jay Roach’s heinous War of the Roses remake, Dennis Quaid’s Ronald Reagan biopic and George Miller’s hard-to-define and even harder-to-love flop Three Thousand Years of Longing.

Ever since The Dog Stars, based on Peter Heller’s 2012 novel, had been yanked from its far more encouraging date at the end of March, there were multiple red flags flying and the rotten end of August has ultimately become an appropriate punishment for a limp and lethargic film that only briefly fascinates in pushing us to wonder what anyone was really hoping this would end up being.

It’s yet another grubby postapocalyptic survival tale, an overcrowded subgenre that hasn’t just reached maximum capacity on the big screen but on the small one too.

In a world of seven Walking Dead shows, the beats are now far too familiar – artfully dishevelled actors grieve for the past and fear for the future as they scramble to find and protect resources – and there’s nothing new or notable here to conjure anything but deja vu.

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