I went and saw “The Dog Stars’ last week. I enjoyed the book, and I’m a fan of Ridley Scott so I figured that, as bad as the reviews were, I’d at least get some enjoyment since I’d know the ‘backstory’ from the book.

This wasn’t so much a movie as it was an episode of ‘The Last of Us’ or ‘The Walking Dead’.

I’m going to be throwing spoilers around, so if you’re wanting to avoid that sort of thing, now is the time to bail.

Still here? Okay.

The movie veered from the book in a bunch of ways. Some minor, some not so minor, and there were some additions/modifications that were necessary to translate the book to the screen. Starting at the top:

Jasper the dog, who is now a malinois(?) instead of a beagle, dies when a ‘roach’ (scavenger) stabs him in an attack on the airfield. Also, Jaspers death is a result of Bangley not engaging the intruders immediately because Bangley wanted to teach Hig a lesson about being careless and letting people get into the perimeter.

Bangley is the most fleshed out character here…not because of the script or storywriting, but simply because Brolin does a great job with the little material he has in conveying the merciless defender that is Bangley. The character of Higs, Cima, and Pops are pretty underdeveloped and the actors bring nothing to the roles that any other actor couldn’t have brought. Pops, who is every bit a tough customer as Bangley in the book, is seen more as a old rancher type with a single-action revolver and a lever gun. CIma is played fairly accurately except her own medical issues are never touched upon.

The Grand Rapids airport…which in the book is a death trap manned by an elderly couple who lures in fliers, is instead a Hotel California type of setup where an aging stewardess (reasonably portrayed by Allison Janney) has created a cult-like empire within the terminal. I think the original setup of the elderly couple would have been better on the screen, but this iteration provided fuel for a brief action scene.

The need for Cima/Pops to leave their safe haven in the book is due to drought, in the movie its from being overrun by ‘roaches’. Same for Hig/Bangleys needing to depart their airport and to go live with the Families, whose blood illness is barely mentioned.

And, finally, Bangleys ‘last stand’ battle is shown but instead of being found a week later half-dead by HIg, Bangley is hale and hearty, although heavily bandaged, and dancing around in his boxer briefs making coffee when Hig returns.

The absolute biggest thing missing from the movie is what was the crux of the book – Hig dealing with the overwhelming grief and loss of his wife, and then his dog, and his desperate bid to try to find a new life that accidentally leads him to Cima and Pops. The book went into great detail to show Hig’s profound pain and loss, and how all he had left in the world was going fishing and his dog. And with the loss of his dog he had nothing to keep him rooted in this world, leaving him to his one-way trip to discover who made the mysterious radio transmission from Grand Rapids.\

Missing scenes: the fight at the Coke truck, Bangley’s mortar attack on Higs pursuers, the exposition of Bangleys past (briefly encapsulated in a scene at the end where Bangley talks in the third-person about himself..a Marine who lost his wife and kids), and the initial engagement between Cima/Pops and Hig. Perhaps the budget just wasn’t there.

To be fair, conveying that pain and loss on screen would have been a tall order. But I think a better actor could have done it. I think also that Ridley Scott, whose recent movies have been rather underperfoming, may have been phoning this one in and just not tried to convey that sadness and loneliness. Contrast this to his work in Blade Runner in the piano scene where Deckard, in his apartment , manages to convey his isolation and loneliness in just a few moments. Clearly Scott knows how to convey that sort of emotion…he just didn’t.

I read a review somewhere that said this movie didnt know if it was trying to be a zombie movie, an action movie, a dramatic movie, a romance movie, or a character-driven movie…so it tried to be all of them at once and failed at all of them. That seems to have some weight.

Is it worth seeing? Honestly, unless youve read the book I’d say skip this…without having read the book so you can ‘fill in the blanks’ on your own, this just comes across as a two-part episode of The Walking Dead or The Last of Us.