Alex Garland’s latest movie tip-toes around substance in a cowardly fashion

Alex Garland and A24 have teamed up to release the production company’s largest funded film yet, with a whopping budget of $75 million, featuring a rising Cailee Spaeny and a vetted Kirsten Dunst. But it’s like the saying goes, money can’t buy everything — or in this case — a good movie.

Civil War is set in the near-future, where the United States has exploded into disarray, leaving Texas and California to join forces, labelled the Western Forces, in their attempt to abolish the supposed fascist government and its ruling president; it follows three journalists documenting the aforementioned war in the midst of heated battle. In what cosplays a political film, Garland takes the viewer on an emotionally charged ride, creating both stunning and disturbing images that could make anybody’s stomach turn, feeding on both the anxiety-inducing nature of war and the impartial lens of war journalism. The film’s use of sudden sonic and visual eruptions set the stage for some truly grotesque war sequences, but what good are they without any political backbone? A heavy topic made palatable, it takes any ounce of political insight and throws it away, choosing its digestible style over substance.

The film chooses to never disclose the reasoning behind the ensuing Civil War, showing great atrocity on both sides of the battlefield, and although it presents — with assumption — that the Western Forces are on the “right” side of history, its lack of a statement proves cowardly. Instead, the spotlight shines on the neutral lens of three war journalists as they observe the obscenity of war, bottlenecking the film into a corner where its most meaningful takeaway is that war is bad. Alex Garland himself has said in multiple interviews that Civil War argues that polarization is bad and extreme partisanship is dangerous, two redundant statements that leave a bit of a sour taste in the mouth, especially considering the myriad of political thematics that could have been explored if given the slightest bit more attention. The “both sides” approach is both outdated — as if it was ever in fashion anyway — and terribly toothless, afraid of taking any stance significant in today’s political atmosphere.

The idea to separate politics from art is political in itself, and Garland’s central thesis may bolster a stronger opinion than the neutrality he was aiming for. Apoliticism in film itself isn’t the issue — it can actually be good in most cases — but the distaste of being apolitical in an imagined war-torn United States isn’t stimulating in any case. Why make the movie at all? Western pick-me centrism isn’t new; any chance to be praised for making a substanceless bipartisan argument will be taken by those who get off on being perceived as progressive.

The film ends in melodramatic fashion, with the journalists getting their money shot that they so painstakingly fought for, but it can’t be helped that they weren’t painted as big of “heroes” that Garland so strongly pushed for. The payoff — if you can call it that — is purely plot-driven with no additional insight into what even Garland wanted the movie to say, leaving much to be desired in all perspectives. Tonally, the film never quite hits the mark either, struggling to choose a style in which it wants to identify. Frustrating needle drops and incessant humor appear much too often, especially when unwarranted, causing it to suffer from a lack of directness that’s needed in a war movie. This isn’t to say there’s nothing good that came out of the film, saying such a thing would be a blatant lie. Most of its strengths come in the form of its brutal and honest imagery, and its unwavering sound design, creating an anxiety-inducing and stressful watch that immerses you into it. But without any real conviction, Civil War shoots itself in the foot by staring too hard in the face of centrism, leaving no room for any exploration of itself and its ideas.