Title: Civil War

Is This Where You Quote That Dumb Guns N' Roses Song? Ha ha! Why, I'd never do something so hacky and predictable! [rips up Use Your Illusion II liner notes]

Brief Plot Synopsis: {WAR}: f(nothing) = |nothing|

Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3.5 J&R Whiskey Liquor Lads out of 5.
Tagline: "Welcome to the frontline."

Better Tagline: "One upside: hardly any traffic."

Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: In the waning days of the Second American Civil War, veteran photojournalist Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and fellow reporter Joel (Wagner Moura) leave for Washington, DC hoping to interview the beleaguered President (Nick Offerman). Tagging along are Joel's mentor Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and rookie photog Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), who idolizes Lee and soon realizes she may have gotten more than she bargained for.
"Critical" Analysis: Civil War is a solid movie, just to get that out of the way. It's harrowing, powerful, and eschews polemic for a wider look at the (hypothetical) physical and psychic costs of war. It's also very unlike the marketing, following a quartet of journalists through a ruined landscape with little (if any) explanation as to how we got there.

It's a lot to unpack, and writer/director Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) doesn't hold your hand. Whatever split the U.S. into warring factions takes place long before the events of the movie. But it's not the point, as Garland, who's British, has emphatically told us that the political details don't matter.

Which means we don't know why the President is fighting against both the "Florida Alliance" of the Deep South and the "Western Forces" of a combined California and ... Texas. It's true there aren't many things that could unite the populations of two disparate states. Maybe the President offered Mexico back its past real estate holdings, or — I don't know — had the Dodgers and Astros murdered.

Which still doesn't explain why Giants or Rangers fans would give a shit. Whatever. it isn't like the British carving up territory with no regard to existing cultural realities is somehow new.

But Garland knows his action photography. He has cited the classic Soviet anti-war film Come and See as an inspiration, and it shows in the brutal and chaotic (and loud) combat scenes, which are one of the reasons the movie is so effective.

Another is Dunst's performance. Lee is haunted by a lifetime of photographing atrocities, starting with something called the "Antifa Massacre,"* and Dunst makes you feel every minute of it. Spaeny, who already impressed in last year's Priscilla, is one to keep an eye on, even if her arc (and Lee's if we're being honest) is ultimately a predictable one.

It was also nice of Garland to work Dunst's husband Jesse Plemons in ,and demonstrate once again how gotdamn believable the guy is playing psychos (in this case, a soldier leaning way too hard into fighting the latter part of "enemies foreign and domestic").

The soundtrack's also designed for maximum discordance and unease. De La Soul's "Say No Go" and Sturgill Simpson's "Breakers Roar" provide an interesting complement to what's taking place onscreen, but it's the work of avant-garde punksters Suicide that really throws a tonal monkey wrench into the proceedings.

Garland's approach — ignoring cause for effects — works until it doesn't. It's fun to project our personal inclinations on the more noble protagonists, which is the point Sammy makes: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. But his decision to forego any narrative antecedent makes the predictable ending that much more of a bummer. Civil War is a more muscular film than Men, Garland's previous effort. Like that movie, however, it mistakes broad brush strokes for insight.

*Sadly, the follow-up question: "Did Antifa massacre a bunch of people, or were a bunch of Antifa massacred?" never materializes.

Civil War is in theaters today.