The Truth has No Teeth: ‘Civil War’ Review

Alex Garland’s Civil War presents a near-future dystopian United States at a time when the United States exists, in reality, as an increasingly dystopian colonial empire at the precipice of collapse. It uses the presently divisive state of American politics to draw audiences in to watch a movie about how much more divisive it can be. It’s a very polished and well-designed movie that delivers a masterclass on neutrality during wartime at a time when, in reality, neutrality enables widescale oppression and terrorism. It talks about any number of things but doesn’t explain anything. Civil War follows a crew of journalists documenting the potential final days of the United States as we know it. The United States is now divided into four factions. Texas and California have seceded from the country to form the Western Forces and are gathering troops to take on the US military. The journalists are heading to the last stronghold of the federal government, Washington, DC – as it is planned to be besieged by the Western Forces.

Kirsten Dunst as wartime journalist Lee Smith. Image courtesy of A24.

There aren’t too many plot holes in this movie, but the ones that exist are looming and overshadow any of the intensity, sentimentality, and emotion this movie wants to leave audiences with. Like, ‘Why is this conflict even happening?’ At no point in the movie does it become clear how these two states (which have no grounded explanation for a political allegiance or alliance) would agree to …