CIVIL WAR (2024)

a review by Evan Landon

I want to get this straight before I start this review: this movie is not a “war movie”, but there is one going on in the background of the “Civil War” variety. This movie isn't about politics at all, in fact. Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure what this movie is about…

I guess what this whole eponymous “Civil War” is all about is a break-up of the United States in a dystopian universe where California and Texas have decided to leave the nation because the president has taken a third term in what a lot of political theorists call a “nightmare scenario” for democracy. Yes, you heard that right. Only California and Texas have teamed up, then there's the Florida group, then the Portland territory, ughhh... Have you ever looked at a map of this goddamn movie?!

Pretty fuckin nuts, right? I honestly feel like you have to keep this map on you at all times just watching this movie.

I have always enjoyed Alex Garland's work. He not only wrote 28 Days Later and worked on the sequel, but wrote and directed Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Dredd to which I enjoyed them all. Devs has some decent reviews and Men was kind of weird, so maybe that is where we can start to see some cracks showing. This one truly did throw me off though. I honestly could not pick this out of a line-up of Alex Garland movies, it made that little of an impact on me.

The story goes, as follows: in the near future, America falls into a “Civil War” for whatever reasons that they refuse to get into, so let's just assume it does not really matter. Kirsten Dunst plays a plank of wood subbing as a war journalist that is so desensitized to the whole thing that she reacts to absolutely nothing and looks like she is asleep the whole trip. Wagner Moura plays a poor man's version of Pedro Pascal as her writer/accomplice who is drunk and stoned more than any normal person, but maybe that has to do with character's coping. Cailee Spaeny does an ample job of playing another two-dimensional character who is a novice photojournalist that ends up joining up with them and becoming an apprentice to Dunst's protagonist. Nick Offerman, as a president, is far too hilarious of a thought to even take seriously and Stephen McKinley Henderson has a throw away part as a mentor to the group. Jesse Plemons shows up uncredited as a racist, ultra-national militant because he is married to Dunst in real life and basically steals the show with maybe the scene or two he is even in. It should show you a little bit of the depth these characters have if that can happen.

I think the edgy premise of such a background kind of betrays the basic story here which is hardly even about the politics involved in why this country is war torn. You are just sort of thrown into this so hard that you may think you got whiplash, even after the cold opening of the president addressing the people which even in itself is just surreal because the president scenes are what book end this affair.

If you completely forget about the “Civil War” in Civil War, it will make a lot more sense to you. This is a message about human nature and how we glorify the most depraved parts of humanity in whatever chance there is to gain publicity at the expense of others. It's more about responsibility with journalism itself and how ethos and morality play into it and I can admire that a little bit. It's just that message gets bogged down and diluted when the backdrop is something more interesting that is barely even discussed while they suffer through it. In the end, you are left with the question of “okay... but why?”

A24 continues to make intriguing decisions with the choices of film they decide to go with, but some of them are more questionable than they are legitimate hits. What they do have going for them, in their endeavor to give the non-mainstream, indie films and filmmakers a platform, is that they do not poor more money than is needed into each film which will in turn either make their budget back or blow it out of the water. At $50 million, this was definitely a subtle hit pulling in $114 million world wide.

It has been given some very kind reviews from the usual suspects, but this one left me bewildered and kind of just “meh”. So that's where it sits with me: right in the meh-ddle.

2.5 out of 5