2024 hasn’t been a particularly memorable year for movies. Only a few truly great films have hit theaters over the past nine months, and a number of those movies, like Furiosa, haven’t had the kind of impact among general viewers that many of their supporters hoped they would. Generally speaking, it’s been an unremarkable year for moviegoers with only a handful of films emerging as the kind of rare, distinct spectacles that demand to be seen.
One of those movies, Alex Garland’s Civil War, electrified and polarized critics when it was released in April. The film, a dystopian thriller set in a near-future America that has been divided into two warring factions, surprised and disappointed certain viewers with its unexpectedly apolitical approach to its deliberately button-pushing story. Without the baggage of any specific political points of view present to weigh it down, though, Civil War gets to stand on its own terms as an unflinching, utterly gripping war epic.
Now, nearly five months after it was released in theaters, Civil War is making its long-awaited streaming debut on Max this week. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s why you should make the time for it now that you can watch it at home.
Why this film matters right now
Civil War follows Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a disillusioned photojournalist who plans to travel to an increasingly war-torn Washington, D.C., with her colleague, Joel (Wagner Moura), in order to capture an interview with America’s sitting president (a sparingly used Nick Offerman) before he is likely killed by members of the Texas and California-run rebel military known as the Western Forces. Before they set off, Lee and Joel are convinced to let Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a longtime friend and fellow veteran journalist, and Jessie (Alien: Romulus star Cailee Spaeny), an aspiring photographer who idolizes Lee, tag along with them. Unfortunately for all involved, their journey across America proves to be even more traumatic and terrifying than they expect.
Garland, who wrote and directed Civil War, punctuates Lee and co.’s road trip with action sequences and set pieces that often provoke either nerve-shredding anxiety or disturbing unease. These pit stops and detours are littered with unforgettable images of American-on-American violence, and they result in confrontations that are as horrifying as they are disorienting. Almost no scene in any other movie that has been released this year is as terrifyingly intense as when Lee, Joel, Sammy, Jessie, and two of their fellow journalists find themselves at the mercy of a squadron of xenophobic American soldiers who are in the midst of salting and burying the bodies of innocent civilians they’ve just killed hours earlier. As stomach-churning as the violence that follows is, this sequence is just as impactful because of how arbitrary and pointless it makes the hatred of specifically the squadron’s leader (played by a perfectly cast Jesse Plemons) seem.
The same is true for all of Civil War‘s set pieces. While they all paint a richer portrait of a truly war-torn country, they also offer little insight into how its version of America arrived at such a devastating stateside conflict in the first place. That’s because the how and the why isn’t ultimately important in Civil War. All that matters is that it shows you what an America that has lost all semblance of decency and sanity could look like. In Civil War, it’s a country that seems to only care about winning or, as one of the film’s most pointed detours suggests, turning a blind eye to the horrors happening within its borders. To watch Lee and her fellow journalists make their way across it is, therefore, the same as falling down a rabbit hole into a modern world that has been ravaged and overtaken by humanity’s basest and worst impulses.
A movie that will leave you shaken
By refusing to answer all of the most obvious questions of its premise, Civil War forces you to experience its full weight as a dystopian thriller. The film is immaculately photographed by Garland’s longtime cinematographer, Rob Hardy, and the two together stage and execute all of Civil War‘s action sequences with an admirably steady, clear eye. Many of the movie’s set pieces are, to be clear, absolutely thrilling on a purely visceral, technical level, too.
By the time that the film has reached its D.C.-set climax, though, its action has been whittled down to its most basic purposes. Not even the movie’s characters seem to really know why they are tagging along throughout Civil War‘s third act. All that matters is that they keep moving forward and keep getting the next shot. This is action at its most gripping and numbing, exhilarating and haunting. Such is the strange dichotomy that makes Civil War such a special, affecting thriller. It will grab you, pull you in, and leave you shaken.
The same can’t be said for many other movies this year, which is why Civil War is well deserving of your time and attention.
Civil War is streaming now on Max.
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