It says something about us that dogs are critical when it comes to postapocalyptic movies. Tom Hanks had an adorable terrier in “Finch” and Will Smith had a heroic German shepherd in “I Am Legend.” Another German shepherd is due to accompany Brad Pitt in next month’s “Heart of Beast,” but until then we have “The Dog Stars” and its four-legged Malinois star.
The pup is named Jasper in Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Peter Heller’s novel, a tale of man and man’s best friend trying to find purpose in a brutal, post-pandemic Colorado. What this proves is you can’t tell a story about humanity without a little canine.
Scott’s movie is a welcome if slightly odd addition to the postapocalyptic canon, a movie less centered on the kill-or-be-killed mutant hellscape than the costs of survival itself. Ignoring one unhinged sequence toward the end, “The Dog Stars” is a quiet love story set amid sniper fire, RPGs and fuel cans. It’s even optimistic.
Jacob Elordi stars as Hig, a mechanic and pilot who has survived a pandemic that wiped out most of humanity, including his beloved wife. He’s holed up at an abandoned airport in Erie, Colorado, accompanied by the ever-alert Jasper — who’s a good boy? — and an ex-military man, Bangley, played by Josh Brolin. He’s not such a good boy.
Hig spends his days flying his Cessna into Denver to scavenge for food and supplies, or looking after other pockets of survivors, like a Mennonite community whose connection to the land and simple ways seem perfectly suited for the End Days.
Scott and screenwriter Mark L. Smith haven’t quite figured out what nasty things are out there, lurking in the dark. Sometimes it’s just roving survivalists and sometimes it’s a wave of incoherent, shirtless, heavily tattooed cultists who suddenly swarm, like from “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.”
Our hero hopes there are other sane uninfected folk out there, but his gruff pal disagrees. “What do you expect to find?” Bangley asks. Stay in the compound, with power, weapons and food, he argues: The virus pulled the mask off civilization. Stay and wait to die.
Hig disagrees — “I can’t do this anymore” — and sets off for Grand Junction, where he thinks he heard a radio transmission. First, though, he comes across a young widow and her protective father, played by Margaret Qualley and Guy Pearce. Elordi, already a hangdog hottie, now shifts into pure smoldering gear; Qualley, despite apparently not having showered in years, sizzles. (Did you know jean shorts survive the apocalypse?)
There’s loads of survivor’s guilt to get through before these stupidly beautiful people can think about romance. One lovely scene has them confessing what they miss most about their lives before the virus — driving to music, even traffic. Watching Qualley as she hears recorded music for the first time in years, the joy washing over her face, is a delight.
Just as this quiet love story gets going, it’s time for more knife-slitting and killer hordes. And for Allison Janney to appear in what surely will be 2026’s most bananas performance by an actor in a post apocalyptic airport. It’s a sequence that really doesn’t fit, but are you going to turn away as Janney downs martinis to “Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)”?
What Scott and Smith have managed is very hard, putting a tender love story into a zombie flick, like that Trojan Horse trick from “The Odyssey.” One odder decision is to film this Colorado-specific tale in Italy, with the Dolomite mountains filling in for the Rockies.
The filmmakers found the perfect song — Hozier’s gorgeous “Like Real People Do” plays at the beginning and end — to go with the perfect postapocalyptic couple. And that dog — such a good boy.
“The Dog Stars,” a 20th Century Studios release in theaters starting Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “strong violence and language.” Running time: 118 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
