The Dog Stars Review – Yes, the Dog Dies – And So Does Your Will to Stay Awake

Ridley Scott has never made a bad movie. Sure, some have been better than others, but nothing has ever been totally unwatchable. The Dog Stars doesn’t change this, but oh boy, is it a snooze fest.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world in the future after a virus wipes out a large chunk of humanity, Hig (Jacob Elordi) lives with his dog Jasper and Bangley (Josh Brolin) at an abandoned airport. They protect the place from “roaches” (other folks who try to invade their land), but Hig dreams of something more and a greater life than what he has. So, he ventures out to discover what’s out there, where he ends up meeting Cima (Margaret Qualley) and her father Pops (Guy Pearce).

The Dog Stars is The Walking Dead and The Last of Us without the zombies and creatures. Every plot point, or question about survival (or survivor’s guilt), has been done before ad nauseam. Nothing here feels original or new in the slightest, as it’s all been covered in post-apocalyptic stories of the past two decades where the protagonists need to learn about the resilience of the human spirit while dealing with the worst aspects of humanity.

The sense of déjà vu doesn’t aid the story one bit, since you can call every beat long before it happens. It’s tedious and frustrating to sit through, because of the predictability and general lack of anything for long stretches of screentime. Scott’s likely to argue that this is for audiences to sit with the same uneasiness and uncertainty that the characters onscreen experience, but let’s not sugarcoat this: No one cares about these characters who are generic archetypes from these types of stories. Pardon the bluntness, but it’s the same old trough slop that AMC has served up with The Walking Dead and its never-ending spin-offs.

Erik Messerschmidt’s cinematography aside (because the film and its settings look fantastic), everything else comes across on autopilot and recycled from elsewhere. Jacob Elordi is okay, though not spectacular, and spends most of the movie moping around, while the only other performances worth talking about come from Brolin, Pearce, and Allison Janney as Darlene. Brolin, in particular, brings levity to the occasion with his effortless humor, whereas Pearce plays the gruff sweetheart and Janney pulls out the strange and deranged for her character.

Oh, and here’s a spoiler because people need to know this before going in or buying a ticket: the dog dies in The Dog Stars. While it’s true to the source material and turns out to be the key event that sends Hig on his journey of exploration, can we please stop killing the dog in movies now? Honestly, it feels like every film nowadays has got this element. At this point, it’s just a lazy way to elicit emotion from the viewer and screams a lack of creativity.

RELATED: “The Dog Does Not Die”: Hollywood’s Latest Dog-Movie Promise, Explained

If it weren’t for the cast and director involved, The Dog Stars is the kind of movie that would go straight to streaming. This isn’t a cinema event, nor something that anybody should be rushing out to watch. It’s the type of movie you put on at 10 PM at night, fall asleep about halfway in, and never return to finish it. If nobody cares, why should you?

The Dog Stars hits movie theaters on August 28.

The Dog Stars
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.

	Studio: 20th Century Studios
	Running Time: 118 minutes
	Release Date: August 28, 2026
	Cast: Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Guy Pearce
	Director: Ridley Scott
	Writers: Mark L. Smith, Christopher Wilkinson
	Genre: Sci-Fi, Survival, Action, Thriller
	Box Office: N/A