Jonny Numb

As a matter of self-preservation, I try to follow politics as little as possible. Two decades ago, I was “political” to an obnoxious degree (read: I watched a lot of cable news and blustered on about “the way things should be” while never doing much of anything to affect actual change – and this was before social media became an ever-expanding sinkhole of conspiracy theories and disinformation).

I realize such a stance could earn finger-wagging accusations of willful ignorance and “being part of the problem,” but… [gestures to the world around us] …what good is being up to speed with the Republicans and the Democrats going to do as the current situation continues to become socially and economically untenable for any poor Schmoe who hasn’t been assimilated into the suit-and-tie elite of the Bidens, the Trumps, the Gates’, the Musks?

If I’m part of the vast majority on a sinking ship, I’d rather enjoy the violins before plunging to my death. Does that make sense?

So, again – please pardon my ignorance when I say I had a hard time following what, exactly, was happening in Alex Garland’s Civil War. Some of this – the abrupt edits into the midst of firefights; the vague codification of which “side” characters are on – is a deliberate attempt to show the schizophrenic nature of war, but some of it is because, well…I just didn’t give a shit.

And that leads to an even greater problem: in his previous films, Garland was extremely adept in bringing abstract and fantastical sci-fi (Ex Machina; Annihilation) and horror (Men) concepts to the screen in creative ways. With Civil War, he pulls himself down to reality – some semblance of it, anyway – and the result is a hollow shell of concept populated by generally unsympathetic characters and moments of shock-value gore left to flit weightlessly in the wind.

For a movie called Civil War – one that aches hard to key into the aggressive, standoffish sensibilities of 2024 (though it’s set a couple of years in the future) – its overall vagueness owes less to speculative ambiguity than the fact that Garland really doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing here.

Our “heroes” are a flat bunch of underdeveloped types – veteran war photographer Lee (Kirsten Dunst) has seen some horrible shit over the years, as reflected in her stern, stoic demeanor; Joel (Wagner Moura) is her cocky, adrenaline-junkie associate; Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is the wise old sage who’s been rendered as such by all the horrible shit he’s seen over the years; and Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) is the wide-eyed teen who idolizes Lee and tags along in hopes of honing her own skills at shooting atrocity.

Even with its fleeting asides to provide snippets of character development, these people never become much more than their most generic, easily-identifiable traits – Lee and Joel embark on a road trip to Washington, DC to interview the authoritarian president (Nick Offerman) before the Capitol falls to the “Western Alliance.” Sammy and Jessie tag along for the ride. Lee appears disaffected. Joel comments on distant gunfire “making him hard” (haw, haw). Sammy imparts vague philosophical bullet points meant to provoke thought. And Jessie is the young idiot who will learn – maybe, maybe not – that war isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Never mind that our pilgrims’ quest never makes a whole lot of sense – even in the “not-too-distant-future” context Garland presents here. If anything, the “get to the President” endgame is window dressing for a shallow road- and siege movie whose plot can be lazily structured around a couple state and mileage markers. (My advice: check out the similar – yet vastly superior – Bushwick instead.)

In the early going – when I was trying to hook into Civil War’s wavelength – I considered the possibility that it was presenting The Press as “heroes” as a counterpoint to how The Press (in reality) have become a bought-and-sold commodity that’s less concerned with swaying perceptions through facts than ever-malleable opinions. There’s allusions to The Press’ complicity in atrocity – a gratuitous flashback to Lee standing idly by to photograph the torture and execution of a dissident – but Garland never hammers the stakes too firmly into the ground. It’s one thing to present characters who’ve been dehumanized and desensitized by their trade; it’s another – and much trickier – thing to make us care about them in spite of that. Additionally, there’s the added absurdism of the function, purpose, and even relevance of The Press in a nation that seems days away from a total technological blackout. (This particular point was given better justification in the “all that’s left is to record” mentalities of The Blair Witch Project, Diary of the Dead, and any number of superior found-footage movies.)

But by the time the Good Guys (I guess?) are having a firefight at the Lincoln Memorial…and are storming the walled-in, heavily-fortified White House…I had long since stopped caring. Something else that grates about Civil War: its use of wartime imagery – suicide bombings; blood wrung out of a wet rag; a mass grave dug by soldiers; helicopters descending upon and lighting up targets – carries no visceral or dramatic impact. It just sits there, imprisoned by Garland’s prioritization of concept over all else. With no characters to hook into and ultimately no genuine drama to keep the viewer engaged, the film becomes a wasted exercise in failed social commentary, hamstrung by its creator’s interest in drumming up incendiary controversy over generating substantive art. (The riffs on Kathryn Bigelow – especially during the sniper sequence – just serve to remind how much better Bigelow is at this sort of thing.)

Fuck, man…it’s The Hunt all over again – a flaming turd of hype and fury, signifying nothing. And that came out in an election year, too. Escape from L.A. did this same story so much better (seriously). As did The Purge: Election Year, for that matter (seriously). As did…well, you get the idea.

1 out of 5 stars