Like a man granted possession of his own Time Stone, Alex Garland seems to have glimpsed all of humanity’s possible timelines, and discovered that they’re all bad. Whether it’s eco-catastrophe (Annihilation, Sunshine), the menacing side of A.I. (Ex Machina, Never Let Me Go), Big Tech doing Big Tech things (Devs), or good old-fashioned zombies (28 Days Later), the Londoner is not envisaging a future of levity and joy for us all.
The often gripping but ultimately frustrating Civil War sees the Brit casting a penetrating outsider’s glance at the current political divisions in America and drawing similarly bleak conclusions.
Nine filmmakers out of ten would open it by clueing in their audience with a few scene-setting title cards: the US President (Nick Offerman), now serving a Constitution-busting third term, has abolished the FBI, California and Texas have seceded and their forces are sweeping across America towards Washington. That kind of thing.
Garland is not that filmmaker. He plunges straight in, leaving you to pick up the situation as you go. It’s deliberately disorientating. What you do know is that Kirsten Dunst’s hard-bitten photojournalist, Lee, and Wagner Moura’s reporter, Joel, are aiming to get from New York to DC before the city falls to score an interview with the President. A dangerous car journey shared with Stephen McKinley Henderson’s veteran newshound and cub snapper (Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny) is the only way to do it.
Alex Garland is not envisaging a fut