'Civil War' film review: Prescient warning of chaos from sea to shining sea

Alex Garland's latest finds the U.S. way past mere political divisiveness in the bleak war thriller 'Civil War' (in theaters starting April 12).

In short: In the waning days of an American civil war set in the near future, war photographer Lee (Kirsten Dunst) races against time to interview the U.S president as rebel forces approach Washington D.C. Also stars Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson and Nick Offerman.

Expectations should be set - regarding what 'Civil War' is and is not - for anyone planning on catching this flick. Anyone looking for a partisan think-piece rife with commentary regarding the ever-increasing political divides could lead into a 21st century American civil war should and must look elsewhere. If anything, Garland's film is as close to apolitical as possible as the script is very light on any explanation as to what lead certain states to become secessionist. Some brief, easy-to-miss exposition details which states have allied together and that the current U.S. president is in his third term. It's important to let audiences know that 'Civil War' is not interested, at all, in dissecting what divisions created this war - rather, 'Civil War' presents a grim imagining of a multi-front battle spread across the (former) United States.

Whereas 'Civil War' only offers meager insight into what lead to this hypothetical war between states and D.C., Garland's film lives in the daily lives of Americans who have suffered and inflict suffering. The political message within 'Civil War' in its depiction of the grim and harrowing daily survival everyday people would endure if an American civil war broke out again. This is a warning directed at those distracted by imagining - if not outright calling for - a modern U.S. civil war: the realities of brutality inflicted upon everyday Americans on every side of any imagined civil war. The plot takes Lee and her colleagues from relative "safety" (where terrorist bombings are still common) of New York City into the heart of the battle: beyond the frontlines and into Washington D.C. itself. This allows the film to serve as a de facto road trip through refugee camps, small towns run by militias and soldiers committing war crimes.

This A24 and Alex Garland collab tightly focuses on the individual moments of this bloody conflict. Despite the massive scale of a war fought from sea to shining sea, 'Civil War' feels quite intimate and small in scope. A stupider, more blunt approach to this movie would have just been a series of large scale battles packed with CGI and explosions. Instead, Garland opts for tightly-wound urban conflict saturated in tension and packed with people surviving with frayed nerves and disillusionment. As it becomes clear this conflict is in its final days, there's an eerie sense of "normalcy," wherein people just live amid normalized war chaos. 'Civil War' is the perfect marriage of character-focused drama powered by a plot-driven urgency for the characters.

Kirsten Dunst is absolutely arresting as the war-weary photojournalist Lee, who has been jaded by decades of her experiences on various battlefronts across the globe. She personifies the contrasts of an American numb to and horrified by war violence of all scales - from the gunfire lighting up the night horizon to everyday Americans turned militia men capable of horrible atrocities. In small, quiet moments Lee pontificates on her work as a war photographer and whether it made any difference - but her actions speak to her resignation that her work capturing the reality of war has not changed anyone's hearts and minds in any meaningful capacity.

‘Civil War’ overwhelms the audience with nerve-wracking tension and shocking inhumanity. Garland imagines a nightmare landscape of a United States torn apart from within - trimming out all the navel gazing of what divisions sparked this specific war untethers this gripping film from being co-opted by any ideologue looking for propaganda favorable to their politics. It works from the template of other modern uprisings, citing the collapse of Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship in Libya, to further ground ‘Civil War’ in terrifying, prescient foreboding reality.

Final verdict: Alex Garland's latest is a sensory overload of a thought-provoking conversation starter focused on the bleak realities of living through a violent civil war - a film decidedly more invested in the effects of war rather than all the bluster of this war's cause.

Score: 4/5

'Civil War' is in theaters nationwide starting April 12. This action war film has a runtime of 109 minutes and is rated R for strong and bloody violent content, grisly images, nudity and some language.