‘Civil War’: What you need to know about A24’s dystopian action movie
A24’s “Civil War,” the latest film from “Ex Machina” and “Men” director Alex Garland, imagines a third-term president ruling over a divided America and follows the journalists driving through the war-torn countryside on a mission to land his final interview. The movie is pulse-pounding and contemplative, as the characters tumble from one tense encounter to the next and ruminate on the nature of journalism and wartime photography.
In his review of the film, The Times’ Joshua Rothkopf wrote, “‘Civil War’ will remind you of the great combat films, the nauseating artillery ping of ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ the surreal up-is-down journey of ‘Apocalypse Now.’ It also bears a pronounced connection to the 2002 zombie road movie scripted by its writer-director Alex Garland, ‘28 Days Later.’”
Starring Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny as photojournalists, alongside Wagner Moura and Stephen McKinley Henderson (and a scene-stealing, nerve-racking Jesse Plemons), the film carries a reported production budget of $50 million and has already started to recoup the costs at the box office, earning $25.7 million in ticket sales in its first weekend in North America.
“Civil War” has also been a discourse juggernaut. Conversation on social media has focused on the lack of context given for the conflict at the heart of the film. In a recent column, The Times’ Mary McNamara wrote that “forcing the very real political divisions that plague this nation into vague subtext doesn’t even serve the purported pro-journalism nature of ‘Civil War.’”
Catch up on our coverage of the film below.
Starring Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny as journalists chronicling a war at home, writer-director Alex Garland’s action film provokes a shudder of recognition.
Writer-director Alex Garland’s controversy-courting political fable about a violently divided America brings together two generation-defining actors.
Carolyn Cole, a veteran L.A. Times photographer who won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of civil war in Liberia, breaks down the depiction of her profession in A24’s ‘Civil War.’
With a deeply disturbing turn by Jesse Plemons, one scene in “Civil War” encapsulates the film’s combustible political balancing act. It almost didn’t happen.
Alex Garland’s powerful war drama is ostensibly a tribute to the fourth estate. But the film is absent the examination of causes and consequences central to great journalism.
‘Civil War’s’ overperformance at the box office proves that A24’s brand is strong enough to open a divisive $50-million about a dystopian America.
Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War,’ about a strife-torn, near-future America, knocked ‘Godzilla x Kong’ from the top spot at the weekend box office.
