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I’m impressed by the hand wringing over this movie’s supposed “spinelessness” and “emptiness.” So many reviews complain that this isn’t the movie they had hoped or expected to see. It’s not what I expected, either. Some of this misperception can be blamed on the marketing, which framed the movie as some kind of political/cultural explosion. A24 posting a civil war map––depicting the Western forces, the independent republics, etc.––was meant only to stir up controversy and debate, toying with our expectations. The movie is deliberately vague, giving even less information about the conflict than the map does. I think that’s entirely to its benefit. 
 Civil War is a movie about the aestheticization of war violence. The photojournalists––far from being portrayed as…

Review by davidehrlich ★★½

i feel like all of Alex Garland's films could be called Annihilation.

he comes threateningly close to saying something — anything — about the various ways that Americans process and/or distance ourselves from the violent realities that seem "foreign" to us, but it never really gets there. appreciated its audacity to a point (and appreciated its cast throughout), but such a stick-in-the-eye provocation needs to be a hell of a lot sharper in order to make people look at things differently.

94

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Review by Karsten ★★★

spent the whole movie excited to see jesse plemons and then wanted that scene to be over as soon as possible

13

me trying to get the perfect pic for my instagram story

49

real hero was cailee spaeny for managing to do all of that in skinny jeans

(full review)

268

It's very funny to so obviously think you are making Come and See or Apocalypse Now for a post-January 6th America and instead end up with Jenney Has Fallen.

Garland might have even had something here if he could've dropped the solemn, sanctimonious centrist anti-war art filmmaker pretension/moral hand wringing—we get it, war is ugly no matter which side is doing it and the adrenaline-junkie psychos who do the arduous work of documenting/bearing witness to it are important—and just fully itted and indulged in the fact that intentionally or not, he is functionally making a tasteless Red Dawn or Southern Comfort-style exploitation movie where horrific modern warzone snuff images you're accustomed to seeing abroad are gruesomely restaged at home. I…

66

Somehow this managed to have less political depth than the Captain America Civil War

33

could and would (and did, apologies to a beautiful musician) talk for ages about the choices to have kirsten dunst and especially cailee spaeny (phenomenal!) do photography the way they do, which completely unlocked the movie for me. could/would/did also talk about how perfectly timed this movie is not because of american discord, but because of the stark contrast in how photojournalism is depicted as a career, vs the way palestinian youths are currently being forced to become photojournalists as a grasp for survival, shout outs to bisan and motaz. could/would/did talk much less about the titular war. idk!

19

I’m very conflicted on this movie because it’s well made with some great moments but I fear that this is the kind of movie that falls apart in your hand the longer you hold onto it

But holy moly Jesse Plemons

51

WOW. Masterful. Alex Garland's CIVIL WAR is a stunning, mournful, riveting journey through a nightmare landscape. Somehow - and I don’t know how - this distorted reflection remains largely apolitical (or at the very least somehow completely avoids specific partisanship), which I think helps prevent it from preaching to the choir, and instead reaches much further with its critical messaging. It had me mesmerized throughout. One of the best movies of the year, for certain.

27

haven’t actually rewatched this yet, but i slept on it and read a lot of great writing and woke up pretty pro-civil war (the movie not the conflict itself fyi).

struck most by its commentary on the futility of “neutrality” in journalism (what does “we record so other people ask” even mean? do lee and jessie not realize that they too are “staying out of it” in a way just like their parents? at what point do you become a participant in - and endorser of - what you’re photographing?), its portrayal of how little “political ideology” ultimately matters as an event like this escalates, even after hyperpoliticization is what caused it in the first place (the “he’s shooting at…