Civil War

A violent nightmare that I dreamed for some unknown reason. Kind of like Children of Men from Wish. Garland somewhat mechanically adorns his shady road movie with random images of a broken America. A number of them are impressive, with powerful visuals and staging (mainly the scene with Jesse Plemons). The film manages to induce anxiety to the point of nausea from a cruel world that is not so far from The Walking Dead in its absence of morality and prevalence of brutality. But…the whole thing seems terribly gratuitous; for all of the questions that the film wants to raise, Garland’s work just shrugs its shoulders and wagers on another spectacular composition. The characters are flat and the ethics and psychology of the war reporters come across as very superficial research. There is little in the way of Nietzschean gazing into the abyss in this film, which paradoxically comes across as terribly thesis-based and illustrative, but it isn’t at all clear what its thesis is or what it actually illustrates. An impressive exercise in unclearly straddling the line between a skilfully made spectacle and a not so skilfully rendered metaphor of a divided country. It’s actually a reiteration of my problem with Garland, a maker of spectacular movies that are dull at their core. (15/04/2024)

Recall the three year old event when the Trump mob stormed the Capitol. Alex Garland sensitively and thoughtfully directs this theme, this societal schism, into disconnected mini-stories, with just these aforementioned protagonists (and they don't need a buffalo head to do it) killing because "real fucking America", all of which the protagonists, journalists, follow on their way to Washington. As long it stays in the road movie waters, with lots of iconic scenes, it's great. Unfortunately, Garland flips the switch at the end, and with the arrival in D.C., it becomes a regular war movie that felt like a mannerism in its denouement and showdown. Not only did it leave me cold at the end, but I actually thought "and that's it, Alex?". Too bad, we had the build-up to the movie event of the year, and well, it's not. But still an honest 4 stars (no stripes) for the impressive heaviness and disillusionment with humanity in the first two thirds. (19/04/2024)

For Alex Garland, Civil War is a return to the tried-and-tested formula of a group of characters wandering through an "inhuman" landscape in pursuit of a vague goal, but compared to 28 Days Later, Annihilation and Sunshine, the British filmmaker is now dealing with a rather down-to-earth and quite realistic scenario. I've always seen him as a very capable genre filmmaker and I also got what I expected from his latest effort: a solid simple genre film; don't expect anything complicated or deep. The relative straightforwardness actually suits Garland far more than the artsy symbolism of his previous two efforts, which is also not to say that Civil War completely resigns itself to it. If I have one criticism, it's some all-too-obvious visual choices, in a film that, given the premise, would be best served by a straightforward and almost documentary-like approach, the director too often tries to frame the characters in all symmetry in the middle of the frame, as if they were in a Wes Anderson film, and it doesn't quite fit the concept. On the other hand, I appreciate that Garland didn't reach for some low-hanging fruit in the script and somehow politicised the film in a one-sided way at its core, so we get a story that is balanced and, most importantly, not black-and-white. (16/04/2024)

Texas' revolt has done Civil War some fine advertising and A24 can celebrate. Alex Garland is keeping his head down with the script and direction. The artistic arrangement is there, but he still focuses on the rawness, underscored by black-and-white photography by up-and-comer Cailee Spaena (the kid from DEVS), and serves up a classic road movie through the disunited states of America. The scariest stop along the way is the one at Jesse Plemons, and it towers over the entire film like the top of the Everest. I understand why Garland doesn't explicitly state the reason for the conflict, though it is implied, but I missed that very conversation whose absence Wagner Moura laments. The excellent Wagner Moura, by the way, easily nudges the brooding Kirsten Dunst. The finale is predictable but formally breathtaking. Great soundtrack. (22/04/2024)

Alex Garland has a tremendous talent for making movies that are sexy on paper, even in trailers most of the time, but the final material never matches it. And he couldn't do it this time either. How could he, when the characters here are anemic to the point of woe despite quality actors, and their behavioral changes often make no sense at all. Any coherent development of the plot and even the work with atmosphere is quite minimal. One strong scene with a highly stereotyped (but at least well-acted) redneck doesn't really save the day. Likewise, anyone expecting more background to this war will be sorely disappointed and won't get anything thought-provoking or unpleasant. Go play the “The Last of Us 2” instead, or at least watch Children of Men for the fiftieth time. Believe me, it will still be more revelatory than this. (25/05/2024)