Civil War

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. (04/22/2024)

Olympic level in the discipline of "inducing a feeling of deep inner turmoil". I haven't seen something so often beautiful, yet repulsive and disturbing in a long time. And my apologies to A24 for wrongly suspecting it of producing a straightforward war blockbuster. It's, of course, another auteur film, just the way we like it. (04/24/2024)

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. (04/19/2024)

This is an incredibly intense cinematic experience. Alex Garland is amazing, he can make things from sci-fi robots, to Annihilation, to the mind-fuck Men, to the post-apocalyptic Civil War, and I have to say that even such a "mundane" subject can bust your balls. The story focuses on a bunch of journalists on a trip to Washington with the desire to be the first to interview the President and reap the credit, and so we embark on a journey across America through several pitfalls. The biggest draw are the absolutely amazing visuals, which are colorful, beautiful to look at and realistic all at the same time, and I also have to point out the sort of detached nature of the whole film, which doesn't focus on all the characters that appear in the film, but rather just as one of many characters in that world, bringing to the fore not the actors and characters themselves, but rather the whole lot around them, so that the viewer can enjoy the story to the full and wonder "what on earth happened". I liked the variety of everything around, where we get a basic outline of the main characters and then we go straight into a journey where we are surprised by several situations, from a sniper, looting or a scene with soldiers, and once Jesse Plemons comes on the scene you better believe some hell is going to happen – here I have to admit that at this point I didn't breathe for five minutes, and after the whole situation was over I was internally anxious and nauseous like I haven't been in a really long time. There's an action packed finale filled with a fight in the city, so the film can cross that off the list too. But the biggest strength is the sound design, because it is absolutely flawlessly; the contrasts between utter silence, strange music and then the extremely loud gunshots make the film a complete assault on all the viewer's senses. For me, this is one of the best sounding films of our time and I will remember Civil War for this factor. Interestingly, then, all the shots were done with "real blanks", something not normally used in movies, instead of the much less sonorous blanks, which Garland rationalized by wanting to have the actors in action and at attention. Unreal. To be fair, I'd would love to see the serial form, as we don't really get a reason at all for why this is happening, how long it's been going on, and actually who's up against who, which would normally bother me a lot, but since this film completely captured my attention with everything around it, I didn't even feel the need to address that and just sat there, curled up in my seat, devouring this audio-visual masterpiece spiced up with a breathtaking finale and the scene with Plemons that nearly made my heart stop. AWESOME. (04/21/2024)

After Ex Machina and Annihilation, this is my third encounter with Alex Garland's directorial work, which, as with the aforementioned films, tells a story from the more or less near future - but this time in a more contemporary and realistic vein, which makes you shiver all the more. The plot is a simple road movie with action interludes where the main characters are confronted with disturbing scenes from "everyday life in the USA". I liked the audiovisual execution, with photographs of the journalists inserted into the picture, and the background music, which seemed to soften the horrors depicted with its friendly country overtones. The most uncomfortable sequence for me was undoubtedly the confrontation with Jesse Plemons. Visually, I was most impressed by the passage through the burning forest; and in terms of action, I liked the thrilling finale the most. A solid four stars! (04/21/2024)