Civil War -- a review

Spoilers fundamentally avoided but a better read if you've already seen the film

First off, I note that I am a big fan of Alex Garland’s body of work, which isn’t all that big but consistently impressive.

Second, I’ve only seen two of his previous three movies: Ex Machina and Annihilation.

Both can be considered science fiction films: Ex Machina having to do with robots and AI and — with some very dark foreshadowing — the coming conflict between humans and their creations; Annihilation a creepy and disturbing take on an alien invasion (my stomach was churning). Frankly, I haven’t heard about the movie Men as that was just a tumultuous time in my life (moving from WI to OH in 2022), but I will definitely seek out presently.

Garland writes and directs his own movies, which means his rather unique take on various genres and sub-genres shines through. I know this last one exhausted him and he’s spoken of laying off films but I really, really hope this kid stays in the picture.

Note also across Garland’s personal genre how women play the lead roles and men are often full of hubris and casual destroyers.

Civil War

Annihilation

Ex Machina

If there is a theme that connects his two earlier films that I saw and Civil War, it’s his sharp ability to lay out a disturbing future scenario (always with a sense of it being sometime surprisingly soon in the future) and then give you a highly plausible human response to it all. As somebody who uses scenarios professionally, I find that very appealing.

In Civil War, we are suddenly and without any real context — other than a few snippets of a presidential speech — plunged into an America partially riven by civil strife. That partial part is crucial. Just like in our actual Civil War, it’s not like the entire country is at war — acre by acre. There are forces, there are battles and skirmishes, and there are vast portions of the nation just sort of sitting it out — trying to get on with life.

Yes, the infamous map put out by A24 suggests that everyone has chosen sides, but the script firmly suggests otherwise on a community or individual level. Even in the most contested zones, as we see in the film, there are mostly people just looking to stay alive and avoid getting sucked into the fighting.

It is the collision between those two worlds (fighters versus noncombatants) that is so scary, and that’s really the primary message of the movie — not so much it could happen here but if it did happen here this is what is would look and feel like.