The Dog Stars review: Another dog of a movie from the once-great Ridley Scott

Running time: 118 minutes.Rated R (strong language, violence).

In theaters Aug.28.There is a whole genre of films that can best be summed up as “It’s the end of the world, so let’s go on a hike.”The “A Quiet Place” franchise fits snugly in there.

So do the new “28 Years Later” movies and much of “The End We Start From” starring Jodie Comer.On the small screen, the sensational HBO series “Station Eleven” is another one.The latest lacking variation that’s very much running on the fumes of the much better aforementioned titles is “The Dog Stars” from the once-great director (and now my tormentor) Ridley Scott. Their rough plots are all the same.

Some cataclysmic event occurs (alien invasion, deadly virus, natural disaster), and thus it’s decided that the safest place to survive is in the woods.Only there’s a twist — the forest is not so nice after all.

Extraterrestrials, zombies and bad guys, it turns out, also enjoy the fresh air and the sweet scent of pine sap. And so, the main character must venture off to a rumored haven of humanity that’s miraculously been cushioned from the horrors of the apocalypse.  I’d say “rinse and repeat,” but the people in these movies are always very dirty.Scott’s film, which is based on the novel by Peter Heller, doesn’t add much to that simple equation — just a cool plane and a cute canine.Let me set the scene.A disease has ravaged the world and hardly anybody is left. Here we go again.The pilot is Hig (Jacob Elordi), a soft-spoken former Denver, Colo., mechanic who lives in nature near the town of Erie with a grizzly Marine named Bangley (Josh Brolin).

Hig flies a yellow Cessna daily with his pup Jasper as a passenger to gather supplies and survey the area — including traumatically popping in on the house he once shared with his dead wife.Manly-ish sensitivity is both Elordi’s forte and also the answer to the question “What does an airborne widower have in common with Fr...