Civil War: Movie Review

Warning: This movie is rated R and contains minor spoilers for Civil War

Alex Garland, best known for making moves like Ex Machina, Dredd, Annihilation, and 28 Days Later, comes out with Civil War. This movie is about a group of journalists traveling across the United States to get an interview with the president while a Civil War is happening around them and how horrifying a war truly is. Alex Garland took this premise and executed it perfectly.
Civil War takes place in a version of America where the president is such a big dictator that he got rid of the FBI and has served three consecutive terms. In response, many states seceded, with the main ones being California and Texas. A group of reporters decides that the best story they’ll get is by interviewing the president, so they travel across the country and take as many photos and interviews as possible.
Kirsten Dunst plays the movie’s lead Lee Smith and is the standout role. The way that she shows how much horrible stuff she has seen throughout the war makes you see how traumatizing war truly is. The sound design is great with the way they introduce the fights through the gunshots that can make anyone jump in their seats. The cinematography makes every frame look like an art piece that could be framed in a museum.
Many people going into this movie thought it would be very political and left disappointed. The only problem I had with this was the pacing. The movie felt like it was going on too fast and didn’t let anything sink in.
Civil War is a movie that aims to show the horrors of war and succeeds very well. It shows how much trauma one person can get in only a couple of days and how heartbreaking it feels to lose a loved one in the blink of an eye. Civil War proves to be one of Alex Garland’s best films and shows why more studios should hire him to make films for them.