Categories
Uncategorized

Civil War is not the movie the trailer made you think it is

When the trailer for Civil War first dropped a few months ago I was thinking more or less what you were all thinking: “Holy smokes there’s a MAGA rebellion movie coming out soon and it’s going to be SO controversial and shit!” and “Why are California and Texas on the same side?!?!?”

And I expected it to be all over politics Twitter and news websites – left, right, and center – when it hit theaters starting Friday, that it would be “SO DIVISIVE” and the MAGA media would be losing their shit over this grave insult by Hollywood elites mocking them. It’s easier to notice the presence of such “buzz” than its absence, so in retrospect maybe I already knew subconsciously that Civil War is not a better crafted, higher budget version of The Purge: Election Year or The Forever Purge.

Civil War does not depict a MAGA rebellion against the federal government. The unnamed president, played by Hollywood’s #1 “libertarian” character, Nick Offerman is bluntly alluded to being ULTRA MAGA himself: a third-term dictator who bombs American cities and has journalists shot on sight.

The national economy is in shambles. Most people ride bikes everywhere in Manhattan. A suicide bomber blows herself up in line at a water relief truck in Brooklyn. A gas station in Pennsylvania charges $300 Canadian for a ham or cheese sandwich. One of the armed guards at the gas station isn’t sure when he should execute the bloodied looters he has strung up in the abandoned car wash out back. He asks one of the protagonists her opinion on whether he should do it now or if he should beat the guys – one of them a high school classmate – another day or two and then shoot them.

The flag of the “Western Forces” in Civil War.

The point is that there’s not a whole lot of exposition. What little there is works well enough. You will not be questioning why Texas and California and Florida and the “Portland Maoists” are on the same side against DC. An off-hand line by a veteran reporter with “what’s left of” the New York Times explains that it’s a loose and temporary alliance early on in the film. The Reuters reporter played by Wagner Moura seems awfully comfortable with a racially-diverse militia wearing Hawaiian shirts (no, the film doesn’t call them Boogaloos), laughing with and hugging them in a slow-mo montage after they summarily execute a crying US Army soldier – and then three more of them.

And that leaves us with a war journalism/road movie that really could’ve been made just as well in 1994 or 2004 or 2014. The truth is that Civil War is not very timely. It is not a reflection of our modern politics, a polemic against “divisiveness,” a mockery of “Red State values.” The movie in its entirety really does not get any more political than the trailer (which it’s hard to see it as other than an 100 percent intentional to cut it that way by studio A24’s marketing team).

The movie’s an A-minus if only for a litany of mild-to-moderate issues, starting with some not-terribly original stops along the road. If you’ve watched any more than half of the way too many seasons of The Walking Dead (or The Last of Us, which is more similar than fans will ever want to admit) and its spinoffs you might just feel a little overly familiar with the ruined landscape of the eastern US depicted in Civil War. Kirsten Dunst’s world-weary veteran war photographer Lee Smith is about as complex and interesting a character as the Millennium Falcon. That’s not to say Dunst’s performance is bad – in fact she makes the character better – but her “You’ve got a lot to learn kid, so start learning” reluctant mentorship of a young fangirl/wannabe who tags along is a noticeable weak spot in the writing. Dunst’s real-life husband Jesse “Meth Damon” Plemons’s bit as a genocidal MAGA militia man was both electrifying and more than slightly dissonant from the rest of the film.

None of that “sum of its parts” cop-out outweighs the entire experience. If you’ve seen and liked Children of Men – a spectacularly dystopian classic that doesn’t get nearly as much reverence as it deserves – you will absolutely and rightfully appreciate Civil War for a lot of the same reasons.

Especially the last 20 minutes. Holy fucking shit. Not going to spoil anything, even if you might have already guessed what happens and where it happens based on the trailer. But it is absolutely on par with the refugee camp battle in Children of Men. Just superb filmmaking in every respect.

Hard recommend for Civil War for folks who love great films about journalism and war. Non-recommend for those looking for some biting satire of the twisted current state of politics.

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Jaydee strongly hints reich should just defy judge’s order

50 minutes ago

Is South Africa confiscating whites’ land or does it just feel like it?

1 hour ago

Dog murderer doesn’t say no when asked whether non-violent criminal undocumented migrants could end up at Guantanamo

4 hours ago

Cybertruck 17 times deadlier than Ford Pinto: analysis

5 hours ago

Tsunami alert issued for Puerto Rico and USVI after 7.6 mag quake

17 hours ago

MAGA Land foolishly puts expiration date on blaming Biden

1 day ago

CBS News hasn’t settled with Trump yet

1 day ago

President Trump continues racking up wins for all Americans

1 day ago

Virginia GOP to re-run 2021 gubernatorial campaign

1 day ago

Kash Patel took payment from Kremlin propagandist

1 day ago

Movie Night Friday: Tremors

2 days ago

Orange Ayatollah pulls Biden’s security clearance

2 days ago

Afrikaners now a protected refugee group

2 days ago

Judge blocks USAID house cleaning

2 days ago

Military halts all sexual assault prevention training

2 days ago

Racist incel officially forgiven

2 days ago

Rubio accused of theft

2 days ago

Trump to allow Japanese to buy US Steel

2 days ago

DC US Attorney continues to supplicate before Musk

2 days ago

WATCH LIVE: Japanese premier trapped next to smelly old freak

2 days ago

Fox News reports Democrat criticized

2 days ago

Mike Johnson pre-blaming Dems

2 days ago

Russian musician de-windowed

2 days ago

USAID is as dead as a 71 year-old Burmese refugee in Thailand

2 days ago

Kanye West celebrates victory in quest for more attention

2 days ago

Arizona legislators to take another swing at banning brass knuckles

2 days ago

“We screwed up but we’re not going to admit it”

2 days ago

Newsmax reports they can only get so erect from tease

2 days ago

Startup cancels $2.6 billion Georgia battery plant project

2 days ago

Cuomo 33 – Adams 10 in NYC mayoral Dem primary: Emerson poll

2 days ago

Plane with 10 people on board goes missing in Alaska

2 days ago

Jaydee put in charge of TikTok sale

2 days ago

“Walmart Melania” exploring run for governor: report

2 days ago

Farm boys edgy around both Don and Ron

3 days ago

Jake Tapper helpfully points out an inconsistency in the MAGAverse’s stance on editing in prerecorded interviews

3 days ago

Fugitive MAGA pedo arrested after Trump pardon and release

3 days ago

Top DOGE resigns over racist posts

3 days ago

Regime to clean house at Health and human Services

3 days ago

“I support what Elon Musk is doing”

3 days ago

Team Ketamine tells federal workers no guarantee on buyouts

3 days ago

House GOP still don’t have their shit together

3 days ago

D’Souz-in-law says he wasn’t calling for Ilhan Omar to be deported he was just saying America would be better off if she was deported

3 days ago

MAGA Reich sues Illinois Gov Pritzker for “obstruction”

3 days ago

Dems delay Patel nomination by a week

3 days ago

Panama’s president says US full of shit about canal transit deal

3 days ago

WATCH LIVE: Antichrist speaks at “Prayer Breakfast”

3 days ago

Santorini still shaking

3 days ago

Murdoch media empire touts end result of their product

3 days ago

Orange Hitler still serious about Gaza

3 days ago

Mob torches former Bangladeshi president’s home

3 days ago

x
x
x
x
x
x