Civil War 2024 Movie Review Trailer

A terrific Kirsten Dunst plays a jaded photojournalist documenting the end of democracy as we know it in what is sure to be one of the most controversial films of the year.

The press are the good guys, but also the bad guys, in Alex Garland's virtuoso “Civil War,” a shocking basic account of what a disunification of the United States could look like in the near future. Designed as a wake-up call, the full-length thriller, which starts slowly and snowballs into a stunning raid on Washington, D.C., casts viewers alongside a dedicated team of journalists as they head to the Capitol as the country falls apart around him. 

Director: Alex Garland

Writer: Alex Garland

Stars: Nick Offerman, Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura

It's the most disturbing dystopian vision yet of the sci-fi mastermind that wiped out all of London during the zombie uprising depicted in "28 Days Later," and one that can't easily be consumed as entertainment. The “Civil War,” a provocative shock to the system, is designed to cause division. Ironically, it also aims to bring people together.

Led by veteran war photographer Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), the small team of journalists are total professionals. They represent a troubling form of detachment, essential to their work but practically counterhuman, as they strive not to take sides, which serves as an indictment in itself. The media thrives on the conflict, which sells newspapers and boosts ratings, even fanning fear about the possibility of a second American civil war. Garland doesn't care how this happened. His script omits why the conflict began and offers only the questionable notion that Texas and California seceded and subsequently pooled resources (calling themselves “the Western Forces”) against a power-hungry three-term president. (Nick Offerman).

Although it seems like another entry in the popular post-apocalyptic thriller genre, make no mistake: “Civil War” depicts the apocalypse itself. The country is in full collapse, which suggests more than what is openly described. Americans have turned on each other, and the only people allowed to move freely through spaces with active fire are those who have the word "PRESS" written on their bulletproof vests. Garland establishes chaos from the start, while Lee covers a mob scene where civilians reduced to refugees in their own country cry out for water. Suddenly, a woman runs in waving an American flag and with a backpack full of explosives strapped to her chest.

Like the cafeteria explosion in Alfonso Cuarón's "Children of Men," the vérité-style explosion makes us nervous, even though the world at large would never be able to witness it, if it weren't for Lee, who grabs his camera and begins to document the carnage. . Seconds earlier, he had carried a young admirer, Jessie ("Priscilla" star Cailee Spaeny), to safety, effectively saving the life of this wet-behind-the-ears hopeful. Jessie's goal is to be a war photographer, although she works with black and white film: a young Lee shooter artist. The ambitious newcomer makes her way to Lee's next assignment, driving with reporter Joel (Wagner Moura) and veteran political journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) to D.C. to interview the president: three generations of journalists with very different agendas.

Jessie sees herself in the girl, although she no longer sees herself in her own reflection. In a quiet but revealing scene, the quartet arrives in a city that appears untouched by war. They enter a store, where Lee tries on a dress and studies herself in the mirror. The film is that mirror, showing America the risks of infighting and the potential costs of division. “Civil War” is a cautionary tale that repurposes the kind of images audiences have seen in foreign war zones – dissidents hanging from bridges, lime-covered corpses piled in mass graves – and applies them to familiar, completely Americans.

It's surprising, to say the least. Still, Lee has seen worse in his life (early on, while relaxing in the bathroom, he runs through a display of horrors he's documented throughout his career, including a man set on fire). If he ever knew empathy, Lee now seems callous beyond repair. When Jessie asks her idol what she would do if Jessie were dying, Lee coldly looks back at her and says, "What do you think?" She would get the vaccine, of course.

Watch Civil War 2024 Movie Trailer