The film doesn’t take itself seriously and you shouldn’t either. Even the somber moments in the film emits a desire of a chuckle or laugh. It is so on the nose with its cliches that at times calls to question if it could be a comedy. The latest film directed by Ridley Scott takes more care and thought in how to shoot and capture the plane piloted by Hig, played by Jacob Elrodi than any tangible story or theme or point. Multiple cameras are used to get the filming of the plane just right. The varied angles of it taking off and landing or it soaring and crashing. “The Dog Stars” main character is the plane. In fact it has more character than any of the characters in the film.  It is amazing how rudderless this film is with its centerpiece being a crusty yellow airplane that has been frankensteined together. One might think to use it as a metaphor to not only survive post apocalypse, but to live in it. But instead that story wants to teeter on the possibility of Hig burdened with grief having a hint of wishing to crash the plane on the side of a mountain then to keep going even though we know he won’t.   Ridley Scott will be regarded as one of the best directors ever, and yet this film by him seems so flat and wooden, and mechanical.  

The lone wolf and cub is used, The seasoned stubborn rancher with a coveted beautiful daughter, and the hardened doomsday prepper loaded and armed to the gills all are brought out in a series of events. At times the story wants to convey a contrast between the civilized and uncivilized tribes and groups that naturally form after the world has ended but the tropes in way for anything meaningful in the film. Hig is the lone wolf with his dog Jasper. Once Jasper is gone, Hig decides badly it is time to find flee where he has set a base. At an airfield, because he is a mechanic.  Everything is so generalized that we just have to accept that it means he can fix things, just not the trauma and grief. When his plane crashes it does so conventionally that it should be the hallmark of the film.  Everything that occurs is convenient to Hig so convenient one wonders why is so down trodden all the time. It doesn’t mean traumatic events don’t occur for him, but somehow it becomes a gain in his life. The plane crashes at the right spot to meet Pops and Cima. The leaves the airbase just before it is raided by barbaric raiders that are carbon copies of people in the Road Warrior saga. 

End of the world genres of film tend to come to question whether it is best to be alone or formulate groups or tribes to survive. The see-sawing of which ideology to which character would prefer none of that is explored. Some people go bizarrely weird and be weird for weird sake instead those people are the classic trope of being awful.  “The Dog Stars” amazingly has nothing to convey about post-apocalypse other than if you sleep in a sleeping bag at night enough times a beautiful girl might join you if you do the cliche of pointing out your favorite stars at night to show you are sensitive. 6/10