At the Movies: The fault lies mainly in the over familiarity of the subject matter

Review: The Dog Stars

Was it Oscar Wilde who said, ‘I can tolerate anything but boredom’ ? It sounds like something he would say and if he never said it – I’m saying it now. And sadly, I’m saying it in relation to this pallid post-apocalyptic effort from veteran director Ridley Scott.

For me the fault lies mainly in the over familiarity of the subject matter. We’ve simply been here too many times before, and too recently. Seeing a world thinned out in the aftermath of a virus (or an equally cataclysmic event) has been done to death lately.

TV shows like ‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘The Last of Us’ have extensively explored the test of humanity prompted by a societal collapse of law and order. You might think when these definitive versions hit so hard culturally that creative types would move on to fresh pastures in the belief that there is nothing new to be said in this genre for the foreseeable future.

However, that’s not how Hollywood reacts to success. The machinery of movies tends to pump out clones or find and fund similar properties to see if the audience for this strain of material has been exhausted yet. And ‘The Dog Stars’ bears the scars of such exhaustion pretty close to the surface.

I haven’t read the source novel of the same name by Peter Heller and perhaps in book form, the story had a unique selling point. 

If it did, it is lost in this resultant film as we are landed in a stale survivalist tale where lonely pilot Hig (Jacob Elordi) and ex-military man Bangley (Joh Brolin) protect and defend their isolated airfield in the Colorado mountains.

Due to his devotion to his dog Jasper, Hig is the warmer of the pair. The younger man also enjoys flying into the abandoned city of Denver for supplies. 

Quite why other survivors have given up on the city is the first of many logic flaws in the piece since Hig still finds fuel, food and medicine with relative ease. And yes, there is still scope in this world for some blatant product placement as some enduring brands prove their shelf life endures well beyond doomsday.

On his flight home, Hig hears a garbled radio transmission from the town of Grand Junction and a belief grows in the pilot that some form of civilisation has taken root there. 

Spurred on by a fresh grief, Hig splits with Bangley and flies towards a destination that represents hope for him in a pretty hopeless world.

However, an engine problem forces his plane into an emergency landing close to a fortified ranch where a grizzled farmer Pops (Guy Pearce) and his daughter Cima (Margaret Qualley) are holed up. 

Pops isn’t enamoured with the new arrival but in a world running historically low on dating options, there is an inevitable connection between Hig and Cima. Though even this potentially exciting attraction is instantly doused in an ill-advised amount of grief and chastity.

Acknowledging the losses they have endured in the wake of the virus might be a realistic move for the characters but cinemagoers aren’t really showing up for realism. A better scripted courtship could have won an audience over to the plight of the young couple as the film careers towards its’ left field climax.

Because when a feral gang of reapers descend on the ranch, Pops and Cima hop into Hig’s Cessna and inadvertently end up escorting him to the supposed sanctuary of Grand Junction.

With weird vestiges of the old world on display, Alison Janney presides over a strange fiefdom which is not the safe haven Hig imagined.

These scenes have taken a lot of heat but at least this act has a tension. To my taste, it is far too rushed in revealing the reality behind the façade. Janney’s character gives the game away in the course of one conversation. 

I’m in the minority but since most of the movie is mired in bucolic boredom, maybe more time could have been spent in Grand Junction teasing out this cabal’s take on survival.

For the most part, the film lacks urgency, energy and its own internal logic. Hordes of scavengers show up at the various isolated compounds to obligingly serve up intermittent action sequences. But we have no sense of how they are travelling or surviving on these treks into the mountains.

Even small things start to irritate like the itinerant packs of dogs that have claimed Denver as their own. These wild dogs don’t interact with or react to Jasper at all. I suppose it’s in keeping with a film that lacks insight into human nature that it seems equally clueless about the territorial traits of dogs.

The film even jumps into fantasy at the very end with an inexplicable survivor emerging from a hopelessly lopsided battle.

It all smacks of uncertainty, reshoots and a troubled edit. That said, there’s a rare upside in the choice of Irish artists on the soundtrack of this film. Hearing a Chieftains song underscore the unlikely closing reunion at least made me smile. The rest of the film, fatally, didn’t make me care enough.