For those who care about the man, the legend that is Ridley Scott (director of two of the greatest films of all time, Blade Runner and Alien, not forgetting the not-half-bad Gladiator), there was an unspoken collective “phewwww…” at last week’s world premiere for The Dog Stars. Because after the woeful (in varying degrees) House of Gucci, Napoleon and Gladiator II, here’s something, well, not half bad.
Don’t start salivating like Pavlov’s dogs just yet though, because this ain’t half brilliant either. Based on Peter Heller’s 2012 novel (which is presumably more fully-formed than this), it’s a folksy, rambling trundle through a backwoods post-apocalypse. Like all Scott movies, it’s a well-stacked cast, perhaps even juicier than usual with zeitgeisty lust-throbs Jacob Elordi and Margaret Qualley joined by the always rock-solid, Hollywood battle-hardened old hands, Josh Brolin and Guy Pearce.
