A Boy and His Dog

In the year 2024 Earth has become a barren desert due to WW4. Vic is a solo, a loner who walks around in search of food and sex. He is accompanied by his telepathic dog, Blood, who uses his senses to sniff out women and food. When Blood sniffs out Susanne it leads to a terrifying journey to the underground where Vic finds himself trapped for sinister means.

This is a very basic that sticks to post-apocalypse movie rules - desert conditions, everyone searching for basic needs, loner warrior etc. The story seems to be leading nowhere but then picks up on the story of Susanne and begins treading towards the underground scenes. The main driver of the first half of the film is the relationship between Vic and Blood. Once the film moves underground, Blood is left behind and the film stutters a bit because of him being out of it. However once the story picks up again, Johnson can almost carry it. And the ending - it's not a shock or a twist but it's a quite whimsical end in a story that is about friendship.

Johnson is not too bad here, he's slagged off on these pages, but considering he's acting to a dog he does really well. It's almost like acting in a blue screen I suppose, having to respond to lines that aren't being spoken. He shows the extent of his talents when he goes underground but he's good on the surface. Composer Tim McIntire is good as Blood, but maybe makes him a little too unlikeable early on. The only other performance of interest is Jason Robards as the head of the underground committee.

Overall this is a little oddity, but it's not a brilliant film. The underground scenes are good in that they display greater imagination than those on the surface. It lacks pace for the most and really doesn't have anything to say but it's an interesting film.

More than anything else, I think this is one of those films that movie-snobs talk about in pubs because they know few people will have seen it! Forget them - it's worth seeing once.