Civil War

In one sense writer-director Alex Garland's Civil War does to the landscape and visual shorthand of the United States of America that which Hollywood has, gleefully, done to umpteen second and third-world countries over the last half century: it turns a fractured nation into a backdrop for fantastically choreographed terror. Civil Wars runs counter to any stirring notion of American exceptionalism or other birthright specialness that might demand that great pains be taken when massaging this future shocked scenario for the screen, grounding the unfolding implosion in the political or ideological turmoil of today. Although, in fairness to anyone expecting just that, Nick Offerman's cowering, fascistic Commander in Chief is deliberately and obviously reminiscent of President Donald Trump, that should-be jailbird gearing up for a second-term push with threats that he intends to make the position into a lifelong one. 

Regardless, Washington DC and its faux Grecian pillars are cast as Berlin circa 1945, the bullet-riddled prize soon to be claimed by the advancing armies of either Texas or California, a pair of secessionist states enjoying a marriage of convenience under a two star flag. This decision to cast states with diametrically opposed political identities as unified belligerents (or saviours, come to think of it) speaks to the overall flatness Englishman Garland ascribes to his scenario. This American Civil War isn't beholden to anything other than the prolonged description of detonation. The conflict harrowing ranch land with limed pits isn't presented as an opportunity to chide or congratulate the audience based on their own, personal leanings. It is, instead, free licence for military-aged men to do the most appalling things to each other. To wield the instant power associated with the firearms and 5.56 ammunition they have stockpiled over the preceding years. 

Aggressors, we see, are often motivated by little more than the idea that somebody else is manning an opposing, situational location. Kirsten Dunst's grizzled war photographer Lee and Cailee Spaeny's analog understudy stumble onto a number of these pop-up stand-offs as they close in on the capital. Although every act in Garland's film is framed by the strange, nihilistic amorality of people who translate human horror into beatific, black and white snaps for sunken newspapers, it is clear that, over and over again, these shoot-outs betray zero strategic value. It is simply the case that sightlines exist and both parties have the bullets to burn. Civil War then functioning as a response to the zombie genre that Garland helped resurrect with 28 Days Later: it removes the abstraction of living death to sit with the notion that a great many people genuinely aspire to shoot their neighbours. To hang their bleeding, pulverised bodies off the nearest awning for all to see. And, if none of that sounds particularly appealing, there's an embedded, IMAX assault on hallowed, Pennsylvania Avenue turf that is just as exiting as the one featured in the first video game to call itself Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.