All Day Reviews

“Every time I survived a war zone, I thought I was sending a warning home: Don’t do this, yet here we are.” This quote by Lee Miller (Kirsten Dunst) sums up the message of Civil War, a thought-provoking anti-war film, showing a doomsday scenario for the United States.

In the movie, we never find out what caused the civil war. The premise raises many questions but leaves it to the viewer’s imagination in the end. In an era where many filmmakers take the easy way out and spoon-feed the audience what they want us to think, Alex Garland takes the opposite route, which can frustrate some viewers. He gives us an idealized portrayal of classical journalism: neutral and unbiased. Going by the current state of ‘journalism’ in the US, this could not be further from the truth. Every news outlet in the US seems to have a political agenda of their own.

Civil War is A24’s biggest production so far, with a budget of $ 50 million. It was also the first time that I saw an A24 movie being advertised as much. Clearly, the studio is aiming for bigger and better, which is completely justified when looking at the quality of their films. A24 movies deserve a bigger audience and hopefully we will see a few more of their movies with a larger budget.

The increased budget was clearly reflected in the production value of the film. The typical aspects of A24 productions were still there, just better. The cinematography was beautiful. A scene where the journalists are travelling through a forest fire during nighttime comes to mind immediately. Most notably however, is the ‘battle’ in DC. The last 20 minutes of the film I was practically on the edge of my seat. The action was kept realistic. No big fiery Michael Bay explosions, but gritty down to earth special effects. However, the pacing in the first half of the movie was a bit slow. The movie clearly works up to a big finale.

The acting was solid, but nothing extraordinary. Lee Miller (Kirsten Dunst) pretends to not care about what she witnesses, but we see hints that this might not be true. While taking a bath, she remembers the harrowing image of a man being burnt alive. We also see her delete a photo of a deceased colleague before the big battle at the end. Dunst’s performance was definitely the highlight of the movie. Wagner Moura as Joel delivered a fun performance. Stephen McKinley Henderson (as Sammy) and Cailee Spaeny (as Jessie) did a decent job. Jess Plemons makes a short cameo appearance in a terrifying scene. He is such a great actor; I wouldn’t have minded more screentime for him. However, it seems that he was a last-minute replacement for an actor who had to cancel.

The scene with Plemons also demonstrates the main flaw of Civil War. Maybe walking up to guys dressed like soldiers who are dumping bodies into a mass-grave is not the best idea, especially for a journalist. The characters in the movie make stupid decisions and feel more like plot devices. The movie is driven by the plot, instead of the characters. This does not have to be a bad thing, but some people prefer to have relatable characters to enjoy a story.

Civil War is a philosophical movie, sending the viewer home with a moral takeaway: War is bad. At some point people even forget what they are fighting for. One scene in the movies shows this incredibly well. Two soldiers are trapped in an exchange of gunfire with a sniper. Nobody seems to know why they are fighting, but they are still trying to kill each other. When it comes down to it, people in the west are not that different from those ‘savages’ fighting wars thousands of miles away. In wartime, the worst qualities of humans come to light. Bringing the war closer to us, helps make it more relatable and real than a distant war. The optimist in me hopes that movies with a message like this will help turn the tide of polarization. We need more exchanges of ideas, instead of people moving further into their bubbles and getting more extreme political views.

Final verdict: Solid, thought-provoking movie; 8,5/10