Ridley Scott’s ‘The Dog Stars’ Earns 40% Rotten Tomatoes Score Amid Mixed Critical Reception

The Dog Stars key art featuring Josh Brolin, Jacob Elord, Margaret Qualley and Guy Pearce.

20th Century Studios

Ridley Scott’s dystopian thriller The Dog Stars, starring Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley and Josh Brolin, fails to impress critics despite the high calibre of its cast.

Qualley (known for Happy Gilmore 2) plays Cima, a young medic and Hig’s girlfriend, while Guy Pearce (The Brutalist) portrays Cima’s father, Jack, a former Navy SEAL.

Rated R, The Dog Stars also features Oscar winner Allison Janney (I, Tonya) and Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange).

As of Thursday night, the film has earned a 40% “rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer based on 122 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes’ Critics Consensus, Audience Summary and Popcornmeter scores remain pending.

What Are Individual Critics Saying About ‘The Dog Stars’?

Helen O’Hara of Empire Magazine writes that it “is a beautiful, mountainous spin on the post‑apocalyptic genre, but too familiar and too down‑beat to really stick in the mind.”

Soren Andersen of the Seattle Times calls the film “a clunky contraption that creaks and sputters over the picture’s post‑apocalyptic landscape. It never soars.”

John Wenzel of the Denver Post notes that “for all its technical confidence and pleasant faces, The Dog Stars squanders its actors’ talents and trades true insight for familiar action. There’s little to chew on after the camera pans up to the stars and the screen fades to black.”

Tim Grierson of Screen International offers a more positive view: “It is ultimately redeemed by the veteran director’s careful attention to his characters, who are far more engaging in their shared grief than when combating the sorts of foes one expects in this kind of film.”

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter adds that “Jacob Elordi leads with introspective movie‑star magnetism that evokes the heyday of Kevin Costner, while cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt’s panoramic vistas lend the unhurried but engrossing story a restorative grace.”

Simon Crook of Time Out writes: “While there are bursts of Mad Max berserking, The Dog Stars is a surprisingly sensitive meditation on what we could have lost.”

Nick Schager of The Daily Beast acknowledges the visual splendor but cautions that “no amount of aesthetic splendor can compensate for the derivativeness of the director’s latest, a post‑apocalyptic yarn that’s stitched together from the decomposing parts of its genre ancestors.”

Adapted for the screen by Mark L. Smith and Christopher Wilkinson, The Dog Stars opens nationwide in theaters on Friday.

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