Mini Film Review – Civil War

Yesterday I watched Civil War; and it was pretty good! Directed by Alex Garland, and starring Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, and Stephen McKinley Henderson; Civil War is a dystopian thriller film, about a group of journalists trying to cover events, during a civil war taking place in the United States! You easily go into this film thinking it will be an action fest, possibly like Olympus Has Fallen, with epic battle sequences. And the film is described on Wikipedia as a dystopian thriller, which again suggests a big scope story, like Independence Day perhaps. Well it’s none of that! Most of the backstory as to why this is happening is barely mentioned, and there’s a lack of reasoning too. It’s sort of like Michael Bay‘s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi in that respect, as it tries to tell another story, with a lack of an acceptable backstory. It’s not a thriller, or an action packed adrenaline ride; it’s more a cross between a road movie, and a coming-of-age drama. You have scenes of these journalists travelling across a war torn America, with sights of society breaking down, backed up by American rock; sort of like Easy Rider, but without Steppenwolf, and a lot more trauma. And then between those bits, we have this nice story, of a developing bond between friends, who take a young photographer (Spaeny) under their wing; which then leads to a rather anti-climactic finish! OK, the ending is rather action packed, like the Washington D.C. missions in Modern Warfare 2, with an up-close and personal adrenaline rush. But it’s not an action movie! It’s more or less a coming-of-age drama. A frequently traumatic one yes, but at times it can be quite sweet and heartfelt too!