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Reviews
Civil War (2024)
What this movie is: Very good! And what this movie isn't
What this movie is:
It's a movie about war correspondents/photographers traveling across mostly rural northeastern U. S. in a quest for a story about a civil war nearing its end. The top billed actors (Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny and Stephen McKinley Henderson), sans the minor part of the top-billed Nick Offerman as president, deliver sterling performances as they make roadside stops and witness brief snippets of people who seem to be fighting unconnected conflicts for reasons they don't really know or who don't have any interest in getting involved. The road reveals some nice cinematography, both of dystopian scenes and bucolic rural countryside. A few brutal and visceral stops along the way reveal mostly misguided means with no ends.
But that's kind of the point. There is largely no backstory for reality's partisans to latch onto and write off the movie as a propaganda tool for the other side, though I'm sure some will find a way. The nation, in this movie, is divided for reasons that are never revealed. The message, to me, is that wars hollow out a person's soul (war photographer Dunst in this case and combatant Jesse Plemons) and civil wars hollow out a nation's soul. In that, the movie succeeds.
What this movie isn't:
It's not going to satisfy anyone looking for an epic war movie or an action film, for the most part, except for about 15 to 20 minutes.
It's unlikely to satisfy anyone who comes in looking for a tale of how America's current political divides might further fester and develop into a civil war, how the sides would line up in the early stages, the political righteousness of those leading or fighting the conflict, or a triumphant resolution with a heroic victor.
In fact, it's really apolitical for the most part, sans brief opaque references to an authoritarian central government and the alignment of resistance allies Texas and California (unlikely as viewed from today's political landscape), who we find out later presumably have more noble aims.
Personal take:
I have to admit that I did not read reviews and saw a trailer only once at a previous movie before watching this on IMAX, and I, apparently like many others after reading IMDb reviews, came in wanting to see a complex political backstory, the evolution of a modern day civil war in America and the costs of such a conflict.
In a way, I felt underwhelmed a bit near the end of the movie, but upon further reflection I was able to throw my preconceived notions away and acknowledge that this was, all in all, an excellent piece of storytelling and very compelling movie to watch, especially because of my love for movies told through a journalist's eye.
I would highly recommend it for fans of movies that depict a slice of a much larger compelling topic primarily from one perspective without trying to be comprehensive. It's good movie-making.
In retrospect, it would probably be silly to attempt to fit a complex American political conflict that offers a run-up, a conflict and an end story into a roughly 2-hour movie, or even a 3-hour movie, without it being incredibly simplistic and missing the goal. But you could probably make an incredibly compelling and popular five-season, 50-episode political conflict series on Netflix about America's divide without taking sides most of the way. My favored way to end something like that would be a broken America, it's infrastructure destroyed, it's economy in need of decades to recover, and everyone's wealth and livelihood devastated, because that could well be the reality if a large-scale civil war ever came to fruition.
One, and only, criticism
Some reviews have spoken of the characters being embed war journalists, but that's not how I would characterize it except, and it's still a stretch, for the final scene, where without planning they kind of run out from between buildings and jump alongside soldiers they've never seen who are running alongside Humvees. It's not like they planned to go along with some unit ahead of time. War correspondents, and even more so photographers, no doubt put themselves in peril at times, but to show them jumping in at the tip of the spear in the final push to the White House was not credible. They were actually in the way of the fight and would have been putting the soldiers they were alongside at risk. Of course, it served the story. It also gave an opportunity for Dunst to really break down momentarily amid the explosions and budding photographer Spaeny to embrace her passion, but Moura's maniacal grin at being in the middle of the action was a touch too much and wholly unnecessary. And of course they emerge without a scratch from a 10-minute fusillade of flying ammunition and speeding vehicles.
Chaos (2005)
Ups and mostly downs ...
Interesting enough storyline with a fairly good ending. But nothing, not even a pretty good cast and a decent twists and turns in the latter stages, can save viewers from the bad dialogue, paper thin characters and awful logistics of the first half hour (lazy screennwriting). The things characters do are ridiculously off for the early scene that has been set. The writers should have worked a bit harder to think through plausible scenarios to get from A to B and could have made it a smarter movie. Unfortunately, I guess this kind of execution is all too common for the genre. Ryan Phillipe was the only character with some depth, Wesley Snipes offered the best execution and Jason Statham disappoints in this one.
Prometheus (2012)
All flash, no bang
Stunning visually and an all-star cast, but little effort was given to develop the characters or write a decent script. I tend to enjoy most science fiction, but I found myself thinking that the supposed scientists and qualified personnel that would be required for a deep space mission were not available when they hired for this crew. Their poor decisions and carelessness in the field when investigating this distant planet seemed akin to a group of teens in a slasher film. A good set of broad conceptual threads were dreamed up for the storyline, but they weren't carried out in a very intellectual manner.
Fair Play (2023)
Decent for first half ...
But I was going to shut it off 3/4 way in, until I got on IMDB to see how it was rated and was amazed to see that people/critics think this was pretty good, so I went ahead and watched the rest, and had my instincts proven right. To each their own, and maybe it's an age thing because I'm 60. I'll watch quite an array of movies, including plenty of this genre, but this is one of the few that I would rate this low. I didn't buy the acting as the story got more intense, and the characters, especially the male lead, were kind of shallow. I think you could make an intelligent movie with the impetus for the script of the power dynamics and insecurities of such a work relationship, but this wasn't it. Just not a great script.