{"id":14957,"date":"2026-08-28T14:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T18:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=14957"},"modified":"2026-08-28T14:27:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T18:27:16","slug":"the-dog-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/08\/28\/the-dog-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dog Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Dog Stars<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th<\/sup> Century\/Sci-Fi-Drama-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 118 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence and language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ridley Scott\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Mark L. Smith\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Harry Gregson-Williams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Erik Messerschmidt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 28, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, Guy Pearce, Benedict Wong, Ewen Bremner, James Craze, Sam Spruell, Sai Bennett.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I had every reason to believe The Dog Stars<\/strong> would be a complete stinker. Here we have a big-budget film from one of the majors with a great director and two of the hottest stars right now attached and what do they do with it? They dump it in theaters at the tail end of summer. It doesn\u2019t instill a lot of confidence in me. Clearly the studio doesn\u2019t have any. Put that together with an empty theater and do the math. Only this time the math is off.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Dog Stars<\/strong> has its share of problems, but it\u2019s not terrible. It\u2019s okay. I\u2019d even say it\u2019s slightly more than okay. Semantics aside, it should be better, especially with Ridley Scott at the helm. At one time, he was quite the visionary. He gave us two quintessential sci-fi classics, Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982) as well as Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001) and The Martian (2015). Is he perfect? No. He\u2019s made his share of disappointments- e.g. 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), The Counselor (2013) and Napoleon (2023). And don\u2019t even get me started on the ridiculous Gladiator II (2024). Sharks, really? In any event, The Dog Stars<\/strong> is one of Scott\u2019s lesser efforts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0And then you have the cast. It\u2019s led by two A-listers, Jacob Elordi (Wuthering Heights) and Margaret Qualley (The Substance). It also has Josh Brolin (Dune), Guy Pearce (Prometheus) and Allison Janney (I, Tonya) who gives an absolutely bonkers performance. I count three Oscar nominees, one winner and a Golden Globe nominee. Pretty impressive, is it not? So why isn\u2019t The Dog Stars<\/strong> awesome? I\u2019m going to circle back to this.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although the trailer leaves one with the impression that The Dog Stars<\/strong> is an action movie, that\u2019s not entirely accurate. It has a few action scenes sprinkled throughout, but it\u2019s really more of a drama about a man looking for a better life in a post-apocalyptic world. You see, humanity has been all but eradicated by a virus. The remaining people are either good people just trying to survive or violent savages. The former group includes Hig (Elordi), a mechanic and pilot plagued by grief and guilt over the death of his wife. He spends his days flying his Cessna plane to nearby towns to forage for supplies accompanied by his faithful dog Jasper. His dream is to make it to Grand Junction where he hopes to find a better life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0SPOLIER ALERT!<\/strong> I\u2019m doing this as a service to all you animal lovers out there. After Jasper is killed in an ambush, Hig decides to pick up and head to Grand Junction against the advice of his human friend, a military type named Bangley (Brolin). Mechanical problems force him to land near a farm where he encounters Cima (Qualley) and her crusty father (Pearce). It doesn\u2019t take long for him and Cima to get something going. Suddenly, he\u2019s not in such a hurry to get to where he was going.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now back to why The Dog Stars<\/strong> isn\u2019t awesome. Part of it has to do with the misleading trailer. It emphasizes the action aspects of the film; in particular, the sequence where a group reminiscent of wild \u201cIndians\u201d (please excuse the term) from old cowboy movies attack Hig\u2019s plane as it attempts to take off. It\u2019s a cool scene, but it doesn\u2019t represent the film as a whole. Scott tries to be more thoughtful with his adaptation of the Peter Heller novel. It\u2019s a human drama set in an inhumane world. And it has plenty of drama. Hig isn\u2019t the only one dealing with grief. Cima lost her husband in the pandemic too. They bond over their shared feelings of loss. It\u2019s not exactly what one expects from a post-apocalyptic movie. The Dog Stars<\/strong> is actually closer in spirit to The Road (2009). Now here\u2019s where the problem lies. It has a hard time finding an identity. Yes, it\u2019s drama, but it struggles with it, occasionally falling back on tropes associated with action.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Dog Stars<\/strong> falls short in another crucial area. It doesn\u2019t fully build the world in which it\u2019s set. How did we get here? What actually happened besides a lot of people dying? Were there riots? Was there some kind of uprising? How is it that there are still resources (e.g. food, soda, medical supplies, petrol) to be found? A little more backstory is definitely in order here. Also, there\u2019s not a lot in the way of character development. I\u2019m not saying there\u2019s none, but the characters could have stood more fleshing out.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Dog Stars<\/strong> has some pacing issues, but it\u2019s never actually boring. It has a few points of interest and for me, the main one is Allison Janney. She plays a character named Darlene. I don\u2019t want to give too much away about her role in the story. I\u2019ll only say that it adds an element of high camp to the otherwise serious proceedings. The word \u201cloopy\u201d also comes to mind.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As you can see, I have decidedly mixed feelings about The Dog Stars<\/strong>. It\u2019s not bad, but it\u2019s not particularly good either. What it is though is interesting. Scott, working from a screenplay by Mark L. Smith and an uncredited Christopher Wilkinson, goes for something different here. While he doesn\u2019t wholly succeed, it\u2019s not a total failure either. It\u2019s either a near miss or\u00a0 indirect hit depending on whether you see a glass as half-full or half-empty.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Dog Stars (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th Century\/Sci-Fi-Drama-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 118 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence and language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ridley Scott\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Mark L. Smith\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Harry Gregson-Williams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Erik Messerschmidt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 28, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, Guy Pearce, Benedict Wong, Ewen Bremner, James Craze, Sam Spruell, Sai Bennett. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-now-playing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/The-Dog-Stars-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14957"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14962,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14957\/revisions\/14962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}