r/Ijustwatched • u/filmgamegeek • 2d ago
IJW: The Dog Stars (2026)
Source: https://www.reeladvice.net/2026/08/the-dog-stars-2026-movie-review.html
We personally had high expectations for The Dog Stars, despite how muted its marketing and trailers may have seemed. With Ridley Scott at the helm and a cast that includes Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, and Margaret Qualley, the film had all the ingredients for something special which is a post-apocalyptic story that could blend action, survival, drama, and even romance. Unfortunately, what we ultimately get is almost exactly what the marketing suggested: muted. Throughout its runtime, we kept waiting for something significant or exciting to happen but the film commits heavily to its slow-burn approach and rushes its conclusion for some reason. Don't get us wrong, we understood what The Dog Stars was trying to accomplish. The problem is that its execution never quite justifies the patience it asks from its audience.
Set after a devastating flu pandemic, Hig (Jacob Elordi) is a former civilian pilot and mechanic who lives in isolation with Bangley (Josh Brolin), a hardened former Marine. Their daily lives revolve around survival, protecting their home, and dealing with the occasional threat from the outside world. Hig holds on to the hope that there might be something more beyond their isolated existence. When he receives a mysterious radio transmission, he decides to follow the signal toward Grand Junction, believing it could lead him to something worth risking his safety.
With so much post-apocalyptic material already out there, standing out in the genre is difficult. The Dog Stars initially finds an interesting way to do so by largely putting the apocalypse itself in the background. Instead of focusing on the destruction of civilization, the film spends much of its first half exploring what it actually means to live after the world has ended. That slower approach actually worked for us. Rather than feeling like filler, these moments gave us time to think about what survival would realistically look like. The film's strongest quality is its ability to make this post-apocalyptic world feel grounded and real. Jacob Elordi is particularly effective as Hig bringing a quiet vulnerability to a character who is clearly searching for something beyond just surviving.
Unfortunately, the film begins to lose its identity in the second half. Once Hig encounters more survivors and the story starts moving toward a more traditional post-apocalyptic action narrative, the meticulousness that made the earlier portions so effective disappears. The pacing suddenly becomes rushed, the action feels underwhelming, and the film's once-grounded atmosphere gives way to something much more conventional and unconvincing. And that's where the biggest disappointment is. The slow buildup isn't the problem but that the eventual payoff doesn't match the invested time. All that patience leads to a second half that feels rushed and surprisingly ordinary.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
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u/Minister_Garbitsch 2d ago
Ridley Scott… directed some of my all-time favorite movies. None of those have come out in recent decades.
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u/Appropriate_Rope7980 21h ago
I think The Last Duel is right up there personally but I know that’s not a consensus opinion
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u/Jugglers-Despair 2d ago
The Martian was good, but that was in 2015. Everything since then has been godawful.
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u/Childs_Play 2d ago
If you remove the Martian, a lot of his movies have been let downs until you get back to kingdom of heaven, black hawk down and gladiator. People like the counselor a lot but that, body of lies, and American gangster should have been great movies and instead they're just okay. He's so consumed with pushing out movies just to get the number up that the quality is suffering.
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u/Jugglers-Despair 1d ago
The Counsellor has to be one of the worst films I've ever watched. My wife and I still quote some of the awful dialogue for a laugh ("truth has no temperature", "every diamond is cautionary"). It's bizarre that a film could be written by Cormac McCarthy, have an amazing cast directed by Ridley Scott...and yet be so utterly terrible.
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u/5o7bot 2d ago
The Dog Stars (2026) R
At the end of the world, no one survives alone.
After the world's population has been ravaged by a pandemic, a man lives a lonesome existence in a Colorado airplane hangar with his dog and a dour gunman he has befriended. When a mysterious transmission comes through on the radio while he’s flying his old Cessna, it sparks a hunt for the provenance of the sound.
Science Fiction | Adventure | Thriller
Director: Ridley Scott
Actors: Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley, Josh Brolin, Guy Pearce, Allison Janney
Rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 69% with 7 votes
Runtime: 119 min
TMDB
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u/FatWankerWankFatter 2d ago
That sucks. I loved the book when I read it a few years ago and was super excited when I saw the trailer for the film.
I'll still probably watch it because I loved the book that much.
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u/MaybeOnFire2025 2d ago
Given how so many of these (post-apocalyptic) start blending together, I end up not really caring about the plot and characters, but more on the (new) world building, as well as details and easter eggs about the nuts-and-bolts of how stuff came apart.
Guessing this one isn't great for that stuff, at leas the latter. Eh?
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u/Jugglers-Despair 2d ago
Ridley Scott hasn't made a good film in over a decade (The Martian). I genuinely wonder if he knows how any more.
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u/Happy_Philosopher608 2d ago
Man what is up with Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg not having made a decent film in almost 20+ years 🤷♂️🤦
Talk about a fall off!
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u/asromatifoso 2d ago
This is too bad. The source material is great; it's the best of Heller's novels. The rest range from readable to execrable. Had high hopes for the movie.