Ridley Scott's post-apocalyptic drama "The Dog Stars" adapts Peter Heller's acclaimed 2012 novel but fails to translate its literary voice to screen, according to this Variety review. The film follows survivors of a flu pandemic that has devastated the global population, and despite a strong cast, the reviewer finds it a low-energy, low-incident affair that struggles to sustain dramatic tension or a sense of adventure.

Jacob Elordi stars as Hig, a mechanic surviving on a Colorado airstrip in 2035 alongside Josh Brolin's Bangley, with Guy Pearce and Margaret Qualley playing a rancher and his daughter whom Hig encounters after crash-landing his plane. Screenwriter Mark L. Smith, known for "The Revenant" and "The Midnight Sky", drops the novel's first-person narration, leaving Elordi's understated performance unable to fill the resulting gap; the review notes the film occasionally echoes a frontier Western, including a buffalo stampede and a clash with horseback raiders, but otherwise struggles to build momentum.