PREMISE
A journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House.
THE GOOD STUFF
THE RELIABLE VETS- The casting of Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, and Stephen McKinley Henderson is very admirable. They’re the type of character actors that can bring a lot of gravitas to a very muddled story overall, and that certainly happened here. Each of these actors is noticeably playing varying shades of the same “grizzled veteran of their field grown cold by their obsession with the job” type of hero. Each of their characters embodies that trope in ways that we’ve seen multiple times before. But they’re so damn likable, and they have so much chemistry together that they are easy to root for. When given their separate moments in the film, each of them has a way of doing dynamic things that make you care about the heroes even though you probably shouldn’t. Fantastic work by all three.
ATMOSPHERE- The visual appearance and the general tone of the film very much classify it as a post-apocalyptic horror film done very differently. Many of the most haunting images are done during the daytime, and they are no less disturbing. This here is incredibly grim, flat-out nihilistic, and ugly. I say this as endearingly as possible because the trailer sold itself to be exactly that, and the actual film goes waaaay beyond what the trailer is advertising.
15 OF THE LAST 20 MINUTES – In an attempt not to be spoilery, I will simply tell you the following: 15 of the last 20 minutes of this film is a breathtaking, IMAX-worthy battle sequence in the nation’s capital. This is a movie that cost 75 million dollars to make, and boy, do you see every penny of that in this final battle sequence. It is intense, it looks spectacular, and everybody’s performance during this sequence is completely top-notch. A lesser film would drown out the dramatic things going on with some heavy music drops, but happily, that was not the case throughout this film especially here.
Again, that is 15 of the last 20 minutes that I’m talking about. The other 5 minutes… Well, I’ll get to that in a second.
THE BAD STUFF
A ROAD FILM – CIVIL WAR is a road film…and not in a good way. I don’t feel that to be too spoilery at all; I think the trailers hint at it a bit, but ultimately it’s a motorcycle diaries-esque journey across the country that finds our heroes in an assortment of stylishly done super duper life-threatening situations. The problem is that this film cares so much about getting the grim stuff on camera (mostly by highlighting ancillary characters that are pretty much characters from THE PURGE) that a lot of the main character development stuff that typical road films tend to try and highlight are completely ignored.
I also feel that road films are the type of flicks where directors can get a little bit masturbatory with their artistic vision no matter what kind of road movie it just so happens to be. Certain shots linger on farther than they should, and a lot of scenes go longer than they should. That also happens here from time to time.
THE UGLY STUFF
JESSE – A couple of years ago, there was this bull**** movie called ARMY OF THE DEAD, a movie that also dealt with the journey of a bunch of grizzled veterans traversing through an apocalyptic landscape. And just like in CIVIL WAR, that movie also has a character that’s not a grizzled veteran that tags along for what basically is a suicide mission for stupid reasons, makes pretty much all of the genuinely bad decisions that put lives at risk, is babied by most of the characters to an annoying extent, and seems to serve as the character that gives the “audience’s perspective” by being scared all of the time, and acting with horror at everything she sees until she suddenly doesn’t.
The thing is, when it comes to CIVIL WAR, that character (Jesse) is way less likable. WAY less. Especially given what happens at the end of the film.
THE…STORY? – The actual reason as to why these reporters want to go into the most dangerous area of the country where it is said (no less than twice in the movie, by the way) that reporters are shot ON SIGHT, no questions asked…is complete horse****. These characters are really improvising as they go on to try and complete a futile mission that doesn’t seem to have a planned endgame. They are EXTREMELY determined, relationshipless, familyless characters that answer to no one. All with mostly vague backstories (described in brief muted flashbacks and on-the-nose dialogue) that are put on screen just to react in different ways to horrifying things for an hour and 50 minutes at the end of the day. And I guess that could pass if you were to go into depth about the importance of their mission, or how the mission could change the status of the world in any way.
Or maybe you could go into depth on how we got to civil war in the first place, or why the war has gone as far as it has. But the story doesn’t want to go there either. There’s just a lot of emptiness here.
THE LAST 5 MIN – Complete trash. I could go on a SUPER lengthy rant about films that do the type of bull**** closeout that this one does. However, even to name those films would be spoilery, so I will digress.
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At the end of the day Civil War is a 75-million-dollar movie that really, really wants to show you what it looks like if this country goes above and beyond in fully embracing its hatred of differentiating opinions and values. It is the cinematic equivalent of a really ugly car crash that people slow their vehicles down to take a good look at before they drive away, all while being thankful that that is not the reality that they’re dealing with. This is by design, and in that it excels.
However, it may be the movie snob within myself that thinks that things like storyline and character development are the MOST important things to consider when you have a budget of this size…
…and in that, it fails. In grandiose fashion.
CIVIL WAR will be in theaters on April 12th, 2024
