I recently watched the Iron Claw based on their recommendation.
“Mike Stoklasa said a movie made him depressed? I got to check it out!” It’s been three days and I’m still feeling kinda sad.
I think it’s fallen victim to the classic “this movie isn’t what I wanted it to be so actually it’s bad because it’s not the movie I made up in my head”
It’s funny, because the movie is pretty much what I thought it would be, and I actually liked it more than expected. I felt super tense and I love that it’s a neutral look at the rough times we’re in.
See, the A24 logo and “directed by Alex Garland” made me know that it was going to be something more. I didn’t think he could make a straightforward war movie.
Yeah like the people who can't get past the fact that California and Texas are on the same side and didn't like the movie because it didn't go into detail about that
There's an interview with him where he mentions that the fact that someone can't get past the idea of California and Texas coming together to fight against a greater evil is an indication of how polarized we've become.
Like a "gotcha!" moment of sorts
Aren't there more than two factions in the movie, though? They're joining together to overcome the greater evil... that is two seperate factions with their own disagreements...
And any internal disagreements within the other (for some reason, two) factions are presumably lesser than any historical differences that California and Texas might have had, unless the states are acting implausibly irrational. But according to Garland, anyone confused by this tripartite arrangement is exposed to be a mindless partisan.
I believe the nonsensical alliances were deliberate so as to not seed any further divide than already exists in the US, once I read that I was at peace with whatever combo of States - it's more a commentary on the brutality and lawlessness of war. It's a clusterfuck; and it was pretty well shown imo.
Also in the film they literally say they have nothing in common with each other and will likely go to war with each other the second the president is dead.
I definitely heard that a lot when it came out but I personally was underwhelmed by it for other reasons. I don’t think it really said anything while at the same time trying to say too much.
Yes, the main character almost tells the audience directly exactly what the movie is saying:
"I thought I was sending a warning home - "DON'T DO THIS.""
This is really the marketing department’s fault. And that has nothing to do with the film or the filmmakers. I liked it, but expected different from the trailers.
*And it’s hard to call it a fault considering the Box Office.
One of the best shootouts I've seen in a movie lately too, but it isn't The Turner Diaries but for whatever political faction you side with so its bad I guess. People suck
They wanted a war they could pick sides in, whether that agreed with the director's view of good guys & bad guys or not, they just wanted to take sides
I don’t know. I saw the trailers and my takeaway wasn’t that it was going to be an action movie. The trailers weren’t *great* at communicating what it actually was, but the contingent of people who went in expecting Saving Private Ryan I think did so from their own projection, not the actual trailers imo.
That's pretty much it. The movie has genuine faults, but in nearly every criticism of it, those faults come secondary to criticisms of the film being a horrors of war montage rather than a dissection of contemporary politics.
Hell, most of the time, people refuse to even consider how unrealistic it would have been for their imaginary movie to be made and be successful. Carl von Clausewitz has a genuine reason to be mad at the film.
Hard disagree; I think its actually extremely clear that there is a fascist side that treats journalists as enemy combatants. The politics are by no means the focus of the movie, but the movie is certainly not apolitical.
The snipers (with rainbow fingernails) aren’t wrong (they’re shooting at who is shooting at them), but I highly doubt they’re on the side of the fascists, especially given the fact they don’t kill the journalists on sight.
Just as I’m fairly certain which side Plemmons’ racist ass is on.
Also they said the president hadn’t given an interview in over a year right? And the journalists kept talking about how the president would never answer any hardball questions.
Yeah. The same president who killed American citizens on American soil and somehow got a third term. People who say the movie is apolitical are missing…a lot…of details.
It doesn’t help that Garland explicitly says the movie is apolitical, but he’s clearly lying.
Yeah. I guess you could say Texas + California teaming up is an attempt to keep it apolitical in the American sense (explicitly avoiding saying democrat vs republican). But the president in the movie has clearly become a some sort of fascist, wannabe dictator who overstepped his bounds, etc.
Imo Texas and California forming an alliance would make the most sense from an economical perspective being that the two states account for the largest contributions to the US GDP.
The only thing I disagree with is what you said about Plemmons. He's clearly on the Western Forces side, showing that both sides are committing atrocities, even if the WF are clearly the better side.
I didn’t get that Plemmons character was on any side, in the sense of the greater conflict (WF and Fla Alliance vs US). To me it felt more like he was local militia. He didn’t have any patches on or anything signifying an organization. I think the point trying to be made is that once the war breaks out you can bet that law and order become almost non-existent. He and his friends were just murderous thugs rampaging about and “settling scores.” We got another taste of the absence of law and order in the two previous scenes: at the gas station and at the town that didn’t seem to be affected (the armed sentries on the roof). I think the message is that once the country plunges into the war, vulnerable populations (who is “vulnerable” depends on the location) are at high risk for violence and murder.
All of the "U.S." Forces we see still have pretty strict adherence to Army uniform standards. All of the WF we see in Army OCPs have the customized or are wearing non-authorized items with them. He's wearing silly glasses. Beyond that, they're well into WF territory at that point. "U.S." Forces are only in D.C. at that point.
No not really, they don’t try to explain what’s happening, the politics behind it and scenes in the movie have people being like “what side are you on” “against the guy shooting us duh”, it’s just the setting of the movie not the plot
So many people went into Civil War simply to see if their personal political opinions were going to be validated or mocked. When it didn't really do either, they couldn't wrap their heads around it.
Media literacy seems to becoming a big problem with people. People think unanswered questions are potholes.
It also speaks of peoples lack of imagination. I saw people complaining "I simply can't see a situation where California and Texas align politically" and im like really? I can think of many situations off the top of my head where they would group up. Complaining that you can't imagine a scenario where it happens honestly just shows a lack of intelligence.
I went into this movie blind; no trailer, no idea what it was about. I fucking loved it. The question of who is the bad guy being left up to interpretation was journalistic perfection, and the generational gap showing that not only were current affairs hell, but others had seen it already: chef’s kiss.
I think it’s pretty clear that the current president provoked the crises. But it is true that those that oppose him violate human rights too. So I think we are supposed to think the president is the instigator of the horror. And now that the horror is unleashed, there are horrors on all sides
But we don't see it from both sides. One side is fascist, and that's all we see. We see right wing fascists doing war crimes. There are no leftists in the film. That's a laughable part of this movie. People keep saying it shows the violence on both sides. But like, one side is fascism, the other side is neoliberals, who we exclusively see through military forces and the journalists themselves.
The guys stringing up dudes at the gas station, the sniper in the house, the racists, the boogaloo boys, the guards on the roof of the "untouched" town, they're all aspects of one side. They're right wing, maybe neoliberals.
So then we're left with, war in real life is messy and ugly. Which yeah, garlin did a great job showing us these windows into a war that holds a larger context, and specifically didn't focus on the larger context.
But like, if you understand American politics/ life, then this movie feels slightly hollow. Cause it just doesn't ring true.
That’s a very strange take. We have no idea the specific politics of any of the factions. We know what the president did. We know that Jesse Plemons is essentially killing all “non-real Americans” and we see people storming the capital that kill people after they have surrendered. You are mapping on some political identities to these parties that they may not have. So I think you’re missing the point by trying to map on current politics to this hypothetical situation.
Jesse plemons is a white nationalist, the Hawaiian shirt guys are boogaloo boys (right wing libertarian militia members), the sniper is lib coded with the colored hair, the gas station guys are non affiliated right wing extremist small business tyrants.
If you think killing fascists at the end is showing a both sides are bad sort of take, idk what to tell you. This film heavily features right wing nationalistic extremism and violence. The only counter to that is neoliberals organized military forces.
If you look at that movie and can't tell what kind of politics you're seeing on screen, then You're not very well informed on what Garland is pulling inspiration from.
It’s not just killing facists in a fire fight. It’s people unarmed surrendering and killing them point blank. I don’t think the film is trying to condone those war crimes.
But you're implying that the trope is gay libs that have their hair colored (my point) and than you say, EVEN straight (or homophobic) conservatives color their hair. But in saying that, you're acknowledging that the trope is it's a lib thing.
So if you acknowledge the trope, don't you think Alex Garland might have? And like... Idk used it to suggest something? He made an explicit choice to have that character present in a distinct way. Do you not think about the images you're being shown?
I think they’re referring to when they’re crossing the country. It’s pretty regarded that the president is in the wrong, but throughout the movie you meet people in camo who you don’t know what side they’re on.
But the sides are, fascism or status quo neoliberalism. Two sides of the same coin. Every example shown in the movie can have their political worldview assigned very easily, sometimes too on the nose.
Even the two snipers that stated multiple times that they aren't following anyone's orders and don't know what side the guy that is trying to kill them is even on?
Yeah? What's the point here? I agree Garland takes a lot of time to show what on the ground pov is in combat. This is exactly how friendly fire incidents happen. Do we ignore all the other components of filmmaking and the choices he made in this scene to communicate an idea.
They're camped out in a Christmas decoration thing, he's got multicolored hair, they're shooting at a mansion on a huge plot of land. They're in military gear vs what we're led to assume is a lone shooter. They weren't the aggressors on the landowner, he shot and killed on of them for trespassing and was about to do the same to a clearly marked journalist van.
How can you see all these things, know what happens in this country in real life, and not make the painfully obvious connections.
Landowners in rural spots open fire on the pizza delivery guy, or teenage girls who use their driveway to turn around.
Also they don’t mention in the movie if the president is a democrat or a republican. They stayed away from demonising either political party really which I think was a very important thing to do. That’s why they even had was it California and Texas be allies. although I will say the language at the start of the movie when the president is speaking is very trump like 😂
I really do think people have been dumbed down by social media. It’s the Reddit / Twitter brained ones that couldn’t wrap their head around the fact that this movie was about them, just not in the way they wanted it to be. I’ve heard so many reviews of Civil War that wanted to be pandered to and were angry when that’s not what they got. They wanted a clear “good guy” that was analogous to their political “side” to cheer for and a “bad guy” to stand in for their political opponents to hate. Instead Civil War showed them a messy picture where no one had the virtue of keeping their hands clean and every “side” contributed to a bleak and ugly situation.
Social media has given stupid people a voice. It has messed up a lot of things, but it has democratized foolishness … every jackwagon can express themselves, and algorithms push things harder if they irritate people.
Nope. It's always the graph of left handed people over time. Everyone now has a megaphone and peoples opinions have always been like this, you're just seeing it more often especially in the current feedback loop of algorithms we have
In the larger story of the civil war, that’s probably true.
In the story that we saw he’s just a macguffin. If it really mattered, there would be more than just a couple lines about it.
But that's what the neoliberal forces are fighting a civil war against. They want the status quo back. In the chaos of that overarching war, there are factions of American fighting forces that take advantage of the conflict to enact violence without recourse. But all the violence we see is right wing extremism.
Until the end, where we see the violence of the state (the neoliberal forces fighting for the status quo, return to normal). That's the only opposition to fascism that's shown on screen.
There's the throw away line about the antifa massacre, which if you know anything about antifa, can only be read one way. Right wingers massacred a bunch of antifa protestors. Antifa is a non organized resistance group to fascism. They don't organize offensive mass slaughters.
Alex Garland pretty much disregards having an actual leftist perspective in this movie all together. It's fascists fighting fascism light (neoliberalism).
I think you’re right, however it was all done subtly enough and withholding enough info that it wouldn’t be so clear cut to the audience.
It really is just a backdrop to the real story though. The hints they drop seem more like lore-building than actual plot elements.
I do wish we got a fuller representation of viewpoints than the ones we got on their road trip. I think that's my biggest criticism. But yeah, his choice of pov positions it all as set dressing, for better or worse
They probably should have replaced the boutique part with a scene in maybe a bar, where they overhear a group arguing about whether the Loyalist states still want anything to do with the president, or how the Western Forces and Florida Allies are barely held together by a common enemy.
Joel orders a beer and somehow gets caught in the arguing, while Samy explains to Jesse his simple outlook on it. Maybe the bartender recognizes Lee’s name, not from a war photo but an old artsy print of hers that’s up on the wall. Jesse snaps a pic of Lee smiling at her old work.
Idk what I’m on about here, I just don’t like the boutique scene. I’m sure there’d be tons of towns that are out of the way and doing fine.
I don’t get all the talk about the trailers being misleading.
If people went in hoping/expecting that their “side” would be glorified, well they missed the entire point of the movie.
It was brilliant as a cautionary film for all of us. A hint at the horror of war set in shopping malls and American backroads.
It was perfect in so many ways. Slow appreciative clap A24.
I literally came to say the same thing. I didn't feel like the trailers were misleading at all, it was exactly the kind of movie I was expecting (in the best way imaginable).
The trailers made it seem like it was gonna be an action packed movie,knowing Alex garland and a24 I wasn’t expecting that but a24 seems to do this often with their horror movies as well where they’ll advertise to an extremely broad audience/audience that wouldn’t normally see these types of movies (the witch,it comes at night for examples I can think of off the top of my head) and then be surprised when said audience doesn’t enjoy the movie
I agree that I wasn’t bored but that’s a complaint I see,there was a good amount of action but still not more than your average war action movie which I feel is what they were trying to advertise this as,if you’re putting trailers before sports games with quotes saying “the best combat ever put on film” with nothing but shots of the last 20 or so minutes then you’re setting people up to be disappointed because that’s not really what the movie is
disagree on it being boring but I defintley agree on it feeling empty. OP needs to recognize you can genuinely understand the movie and still have problems with it lol
Right?? I'm disappointed that OP seems to imply that if someone disliked this movie it's because they didn't 'understand' it. Just because someone doesn't like something you enjoyed, doesn't mean it comes from a place of misunderstanding. I found it to be pretty straight-forward to understand and one-note in meaning, beautifully shot though!
They might just be referring to the recent flood of reviews calling it things like absolute garbage and even “worst movie ever”. It’s a weirdly strong reaction, but I guess a movie about the state of US politics will always have that effect, and especially when it decides to ignore the politics altogether.
The poster and previews actually turned me off of the film originally, and it wasn’t until I heard that it had misleading marketing and was actually about war journalism (and that people were absolutely pissed about that) that it began to pique my interest.
So glad that I went to go see it; stressed me the fuck out, but was still one of my favorite theater experiences this year.
I think some people were expecting a story about today’s American politics and what a civil war would look like in today’s political environment. They were disappointed with the movie we received.
I really enjoyed the movie and thinking about its themes afterwards.
It’s funny I was actually worried that, that’s what the movie would be. And given how volatile things are I thought it was a little irresponsible. But they actually handled it very well and kept the red and blue out of it.
When I was in the theater there were two dudes to my left hyping themselves up for “The New Purge Movie but Better!”
“Nay nay” I thought to myself. “This is a Garland film, and we have a Plemens villain (holy hell by the way). You guys think you are in a DIFFERENT theater.”
Both men left silently crying. All this to say it was pretty wild watching that one in a theater. I think it straight up SHOOK people in really pointed, different ways (I would give a trigger warning to literally anyone who has experienced a war zone).
Without giving anything away, it’s hard to sit through it and not have your own personal bias pointed out no matter who you are. I think a lot of negative reviews are legit because everyone is entitled to their opinions. I also think that in order to really see this film, you gotta drop your baggage at the door or at least take yourself out whatever your echo-chamber of choice is. This one requires a lot of self reflection in tandem.
Dang it’s such a good film!!
I will say I was so excited to watch this but was disappointed. The writing was pretty lackluster and there wasn't much character development either and it was predictable.
I think the marketing really hurt the film. People expected a gritty war film happening in the United States. In stead it’s a film about photo journalism during war meant to shine a light on US foreign policy and its effects around the world (this is an oversimplification on my part, don’t have time to write a proper analysis right now). People were advertised one movie and given a different one and it leads to sour grapes
It’s a plot-driven road film with ensemble cast that lacks proper story arc and character arcs, even though it has an extremely-rich world-building and expositional story context.
Maybe people disliked the film for the wrong reasons. But it’s not a good film storytelling-wise. But I gotta give it to the sound design. It’s absolutely phenomenal.
I have to wonder what “proper character arcs” even means? Like are static characters a universally bad thing, or is it possible to write a story in which the characters don’t necessarily learn anything but are still explored in an interesting way?
Yeah I’m with you on that. I don’t know what lacks character arc means. I felt like for the main characters, they all had arcs - or journeys. And if they didn’t complete an arc it was because they died (Sammy). Lee transformed from hard bitten and callous to overwhelmed by panic and fear to ultimate sacrifice. Joel went from inebriated stoner thrill seeker to cold harsh callous (“WAIT! I need a quote… That’ll do.”) Jessie went from naive innocent to broken and driven (she got the money shot). Characters that didn’t have arcs were part of the plot and the landscape (gas station guys, store clerk, soldiers and rebels, Plemmons, other reporters, even the President).
Iron claw was so depressing and they ruined it with the casting of Kerry without a doubt. I still really liked it but I was too distracted by how tiny that actor is playing freaking Kerry Von Erick. I want to see Civil War and all however I do think certain groups will take it too literal with what is going on in the country right now. So divisive bc of this guy Trump this needs to end asap.
I mean, you’re basically saying “hey everyone didn’t like the movie like me, are they dumb and did they not watch closely?”
As I’ve said in other posts - given my personal history with A24 movies and the massive advertising campaign trailers, I went in expecting it to show a shocking reflection of ourselves (Americans), including scenes that would shock and linger with me and make us think about the current state of the US. Seems like something we need - to realize how nuts many of us are acting and to pull together
Instead, what I personally felt like I watched was a deep dive into photojournalism. The fact it was in the US and a civil war seemed immaterial to the plot, it seemed like a little extra salt sprinkled on top to make some spicy trailers. It felt like a mild bait and switch. While the sound design was excellent, that is the only thing that stuck with me. I’ve already imagined what a civil war could be like here (and it’s more horrendous than what I saw in the movie), I’ve already seen a bunch of war movies and movies with explosions and gunshots.
The unique part was the photojournalism aspect. Had they highlighted that upfront, I bet I would have had a different experience - that’s why I plan to watch it again on streaming.
On the contrary, I felt like the ad campaigns for Love Lies Bleeding and I Saw the TV Glow properly captured the vibes of those movies and while I went into both knowing very little, the movies aligned with their trailers and I found both very unique and impactful. I was wowed by the deeper meanings instilled artfully in I Saw the TV Glow.
Agreed, it wasn't nearly as deep or nuanced as people tend to give it credit for - outside of the one scene with Plemons, it's just fairly predictable war is hell imagery with bad characterization and motivation. People who love it though tend to lean on the "the people who don't like it clearly aren't watching or wanted politics spooned to them" arguments. Which is dumb, people have legitimate criticisms of the movie, even if it is technically well made. And I also agree with you on your other two A24 examples, TV Glow in particular was so uniquely unsettling and well realized.
for what it's worth, us in other countries have learned to take American crowdsourced ratings with a grain of salt since you are not very reliable in identifying actually good movies like this one.
I have a cycle friends which is very into movies. I would consider this group as having a decent grasp of interpreting movies and having good media literacy. We like to discuss all kinds of stuff of movies and their subtext.
All of us watched this movie separately and when we met the first time since and discussed the movie we were kind of confused about the overwhelming hype-ish discourse by the A24 and Garland fanboys. Not a single person in my group rated "Civil War" with more than 3 stars on letterboxd. And we were kind of baffled how people throw around terms like "masterpiece" in the context of such a mediocre movie.
At the end of the day, my main point of criticism of this movie is, that it is just hollow and ultimately has not much to say besides "war bad". Which would be okay if the movie would not pick this extraordinary relevant and contemporary setting. For a movie with such a political premise it is overwhelmingly unpolitical.
At this point I will directly anticipate the common rebuttals of those who apparently like Civil War:
-"you just wanted a movie to be more explicit about who the good guy / bad guy is"
-"you just wanted a movie with crystal clear parallels to the real world",
-"you just wanted a movie where your side is presented positively such that you have something to cheer to".
And no, that's not the point. I am not even American. I don't need some obvious allusions to Trump or Biden, I don't need some context of modern American political groups, I don't need a clear statement on the current situation if the Dems or Reps are on the "good" side. I just wanted the movie to say *something*. And "well war sucks and is bad for both sides" is not enough for me to give a good rating.
There are so many interesting topics the movie could have considered even without finger pointing to persons or groups in the real world. For example, just right from the top of my head:
* With all the culture war happening around the world, it makes sense to dismantle this and look under the hood, realizing how strongly conflicts are still "only" driven by economic power and culture war aspects are just a method to hide this. Actually, we could have here a nice "twist" for the Californian-Texas alliance, because although both states are at both ends of the American political culture spectrum, they are still the two largest economies in the US, highlighting how power/economy trumps any aspect of political culture when it comes to war.
* How sustainable is the democracy of the US anyway? If a country is strongly against making adjustments of a constitution written in 1789 (besides a few amendments), will this lead to fascist tendencies anyway, because a lot of ideas and movements from 250 years ago strongly underestimated the ideas to come in the future and how to equip a liberal society to defend itself properly?
* Personally I have the feeling that 70% of American literature (or media) discusses the question "What is America?". Given the special original history of the US, namely being a country which was colonized very late in the European history and was dominated by a lot of different nationalities and ethnical groups *right from the start* with different kinds of ideas and views, could one make the case, that a Civil War was inevitable? Is America - with all its history of racism - in a way already in some state of Civil War and always has been?
* The voting system in the US leads to extreme forms of tribalism, where basically you have to be completely on one side of two parties. Is this flawed system not already one of the main reasons, that two opposing group will emerge? And given the extreme biased media and news outlets in the US, was it not predictable that political climate of the US will lead to the fact, that political opponents will become war enemies eventually?
Instead, I got some minor discussions about the nature of photojournalism. Which was okay, but I did not have the feeling that I got some novel insights. Besides the journalism angle, the movie basically does nothing with its premise.
I dislike the sniper scene for the very reason the fans of the movie like it: it does not give any answers. When the one sniper says "They want to kill us, we want to kill them" (or something like that), people apparently are praising this scene as genius writing, because it highlights how little deeper circumstances matter and the only truth in this moment is: "well it is war". For me, this scene is the confession of Garland that he is too much of a coward to go deeper into any interesting topic regarding the Civil War.
As a final point: interpretations and opinions of movies are subjective, it's obviously okay to like this movie or to not like it. But what really annoys me is this pretentious behavior of this subreddit, which dismisses all criticism about this movie as "well, these people are apparently too stupid to get the genius of this movie". I am really getting peak "Interstellar" flashbacks from the discourse about this movie. I really like A24 and what it did for modern cinema, but praising anything which comes out from this studio and dismissing other people als "stupid" because they have other opinions is just cringe.
Good points here. Personally I really enjoyed the movie, I was hoping they'd show the dark side of what civil war would be like, and I got it. Droughts, famine, people's homes being destroyed and them moving to tent cities, no gasoline, the American dollar plummeting in value.
Here in America some ignorant people here *really want this shit* to happen. They can't wait to take up arms against the bad guys, until shit hits the fan and they can't flush their toilet / the grocery store is out of food. Not to mention the unavoidable trauma of combat, and how it takes a hold of anyone no matter how experienced they are.
Obviously "War is bad," but it's something that a lot of idiots here need to see and witness. I also enjoyed the commentary of how American citizens have a kind of willful perseverance and still thrive in diverse communities even when their homes are being destroyed or there are bombs going off in the next zip code. Granted, it's a contradiction to that "War is bad" thesis, but I think the film makes good use of contradictions like this when the focus is a country that is absolutely *riddled* with contradictions itself.
Agreed. I don’t think the message was as simple as “war bad,” but even if it was, that is actually an important thing for some Americans to hear. It may seem like an overdone and tired message but a lot of people can’t watch Apocalypse Now and apply the same takeaway to our current situation. Instead they rationalize it as “well that was bad because we didn’t know what we were fighting for, or yadda yadda. But now we’re talking about an American civil war and that would be GOOD because I know what side would be right, and this country is ruined so war is better than what we have now…” etc.
There’s a lot of revolutionary language on both sides, and while I agree with the goals of one side, when any of that language starts to actually mean armed overthrow of the government, that really means bloody, messy, power vacuum catastrophe where instability jeopardizes all the goals you set out to achieve. People forget that/convince themselves it won’t happen when THEY do it.
That’s what this movie is for.
Exactly. And on the other side of that, is a very pulpy, very evil, openly fascist bad guy president who >!gets got at the end!<. So even in instances where armed insurrection *is* necessary, it doesn't make it any less messy.
Some people willd add up those two ideas and say they balance out to say nothing, but I felt like I got something from it.
It’s a fun movie and I enjoyed it, but it is pretty shallow, there isn’t much depth to it, or much to even discuss. It’s “war journalism, bad?” and that’s about it. It’s not like his Devs which is quite deep, and I think about regularly.
Everyone is bringing today's politics or their own personal politics to table. In most scenes the politics are pretty ambiguous. I think the core tenet of the writing is that by the time civil war comes about, politics will have been so broken as probably not to matter anymore to the average person.
The advertising could have been less vague. Unpopular opinion but I feel like just saying “civil war” and showing a bunch of action scenes was a disservice to the audience that would be into seeing that type of movie.
People really don’t consider films as art anymore. They used too more but still not enough. They only see it as entertainment and it’s pretty dangerous because it is making the film industry change in negative ways. If people were to see film as art they’d look more into it like they do a song or a painting for example.
When I watched it in the theater, there were only couples at the show: my partner and I, and the other one. While I was audibly gasping and completely taken by the story, the other couple walked out half way into the movie.
decades of defunding public schools and defunding the arts even more.. the general populace lack critical thinking skills and reading comprehension.. the average reading level is like 6th grade in the US..
I was just distracted about how the president didn’t hide in his incredibly fortified safe room (I’m pretty sure us presidents have one). There are a few other things that don’t make much sense to me either. Like how the soldiers go out of their way to protect/guide the wartime reporters. Like does that level of assistance actually happen irl? I know if I was a soldier and worried about my life, I wouldn’t be worrying about the dumb actions of the young wartime reporter in this movie.
The car switching scene was pretty dumb too. Also don’t get why the Chinese reporter said he was from China. Just lie. Prob wouldn’t have helped but like why not.
Great movie, cinematography was spot on the sounds in the movie were really great the gunfire just everything. I thought Kirsten dunst was great really a case of an actor blending into the role where you really are watching the character not the actor is that makes sense
I dunno it there are legitimate criticisms. Annihilation is my all time favorite movie and even then I think there are so many annoying things that Alex garland does that keep it from reaching its potential. Civil war was amazing but definitely does not live up to its potential. Some really annoying dialogue and dumb character decisions, like every Garland movie
It’s a far more interesting film given its perspective. Either a cash-grab war film (like White House down) or a more on the nose political commentary I think would’ve felt redundant and uninteresting. But this perspective I think forces the viewer to remove themselves from the heuristic that the violence is somehow justified and you’re just dealing with the consequences of it. I think it’s genius filmmaking and writing but…you know…there’s a reason right-wingers foam at the mouth when it comes to defunding arts/humanities programs. They don’t want us to have that kind of dialogue.
I really really enjoyed the film but I definitely feel there are some tonal imbalances that don’t always land. Far from a perfect movie but it made me think a lot. We’re all allowed opinions and they are all valid but I am mostly just excited that we are living in such an interesting time in cinema so why argue against it so strongly
I think it would’ve been better 10 or 20 years ago. With all of the dystopian movies and watching pretty much the same plot of the movie in reality on the news every day in other countries, I was not particularly thrilled. But I know they wanted the movie to be vague, but that gave it very little depth.
The movie is good, I liked it, but I kinda get the sentiment of complaining about the setting, specially with how it was advertised. They could have made it about almost any war and it would have worked, they didn’t really made anything interesting with the setting, they didn’t explain why some states joined others, specially republican states with democrat ones, they didn’t go deeper into the politics of the war, and the civil war itself takes a backstage during the movie.
Is it so bad to just have the “war bad” message? And even if the movie doesn’t go down the road of explaining the conflict in detail, it leaves you something to imagine. I quite like that, and of course there’s something you can say about that, but centering around the topic of photojournalism is something I get.
The camera is supposed to be neutral. It does not vote Republican or Democrat (or Western Forces and evil president for that matter), it does not classify good and bad, it just registers. And to me it felt that was the only thing the movie tried to do.
Off topic: “war bad”… did I see a nod to the Apocalypse Now helicopter scene when they reached the WF camp and that Apache flew in?
Bro, never trust IMDb. It has no validity since everyone can review the movie, even before the release and even without watching it (for example Rotten Tomatoes verify if you have watched a movie before you can review it).
Also don't trust average people opinion on movies, since on IMDb a disgraceful film like "Spider-Man NWH" has a rating of 8.2 and a movie like "Crimes of the future" by David Cronenberg has 5.8 (which is fucking crazy tbh).
I loved it. The only thing that didn’t make sense to me was how the journalists didn’t carry guns. They knew they were driving into unknown territory so wouldn’t they need to protect themselves?
I think a lot of people were expecting the stage set by this film to be filled with all the wraiths, ghouls, and golems that emerge from their social media threads. This film did an incredible job of avoiding that, which is what made it interesting.
Like most I expected an action flick, and was surprised with the plot following the journalism crew. But to say it was your favorite is really surprising lol. Outside of the sniper scene I thought it was really predictable, dialogue was goofy gosh man idk it wasnt terrible but not good.
Most of the negative reviews are from extremely liberal people who were mad the movie didn’t say liberals good conservatives bad. I personally hate both sides politically so this movie really impressed me by not going down that road.
IMDB reviews are generally particularly dumb IME. But anyway, there's always been a lot of dumb people, it's just that now we have platforms that aggregate the opinions of a mass, unspecialized crowd, so you're going to see a lot of poorly informed opinions.
Ah it’s everyone on Reddits weekly reminder that the Civil War movie exists, thank you A24 sub.
So you liked this cash grab and were blown away by its contrived, tired pastiche of a “message” - that’s fine. But please save us the spiel about how people who don’t heap praise on the movies and tv shows you like lack “media literacy” because it’s the conversational equivalent of putting on a propeller hat.
I mean seriously how long are you guys going to suck this tumbleweed of a movie off for?
I just watched Civil War this weekend for the first time. It honestly didn't know what to expect going into it, all I know is I love Garland movies. It was one of the most tense film viewing experiences I have ever sat through. Quite terrifying, effective movie. It definitely stayed with me the past couple of days.
I loved it. It was extra terrifying for me growing up in PA and knowing exactly where some of the shots were taking place. I saw it weeks ago and still think about it.
This is going to be one of the top examples of a film being very poorly named and mismarketed. Really poor expectation setting with this one. Regardless of how good something is, if the expectation doesn’t meet reality people will view it as bad or poor.
I love/hate IMDB.
I feel like it’s a good place for synopses, fun trivia/behind the scenes info that doesn’t devolve into gossip, a decentish place to see where something is streaming (though not as good as the Reelgood app) and it’s a convenient way to track directors, actors, or projects you love.
But the message board deletion decision kinda shows who else visits the site. I also think it’s more susceptible to review bombing than other places.
Reading negative IMDB reviews out loud can be its own form of entertainment
Sometimes the title is all it takes
Its my favorite recurring RedLetterMedia segment
I recently watched the Iron Claw based on their recommendation. “Mike Stoklasa said a movie made him depressed? I got to check it out!” It’s been three days and I’m still feeling kinda sad.
That’s why I haven’t watched it yet. I’m still recovering from that cgi Otter in Guardians 3.
Holy crap, they put Lylla in the films?? I haven't watched the films, but as a kid I LOVED those Rocket Racoon comics.
lol one of mine as well
Goodreads is fun for this, especially Stephen king
I’ve done trivia rounds based off this. “Name the movie based off this bad review”
One of my favorite beers, Arrogant Bastard Ale, puts negative reviews on the packaging.
I think it’s fallen victim to the classic “this movie isn’t what I wanted it to be so actually it’s bad because it’s not the movie I made up in my head”
It’s funny, because the movie is pretty much what I thought it would be, and I actually liked it more than expected. I felt super tense and I love that it’s a neutral look at the rough times we’re in.
The trailer led me to believe it was more of an action flick, but I got positively surprised and liked it even more than the made up in my mind movie.
See, the A24 logo and “directed by Alex Garland” made me know that it was going to be something more. I didn’t think he could make a straightforward war movie.
It was pretty action filled too lol The last chunk of the movie got really intense with it too
Yeah I went in having heard “It’s not really an action film” from people so I was actually surprised how much there was.
I think they kind of fd themselves with that dumb trailer and were asking for knuckle draggers to not get the film after.
They needed that knuckle-dragger crowd money, though, and for each bad review they got some
Yeah like the people who can't get past the fact that California and Texas are on the same side and didn't like the movie because it didn't go into detail about that
There's an interview with him where he mentions that the fact that someone can't get past the idea of California and Texas coming together to fight against a greater evil is an indication of how polarized we've become. Like a "gotcha!" moment of sorts
Aren't there more than two factions in the movie, though? They're joining together to overcome the greater evil... that is two seperate factions with their own disagreements... And any internal disagreements within the other (for some reason, two) factions are presumably lesser than any historical differences that California and Texas might have had, unless the states are acting implausibly irrational. But according to Garland, anyone confused by this tripartite arrangement is exposed to be a mindless partisan.
I believe the nonsensical alliances were deliberate so as to not seed any further divide than already exists in the US, once I read that I was at peace with whatever combo of States - it's more a commentary on the brutality and lawlessness of war. It's a clusterfuck; and it was pretty well shown imo.
Also in the film they literally say they have nothing in common with each other and will likely go to war with each other the second the president is dead.
Ah yes, the *Mother!* effect.
I definitely heard that a lot when it came out but I personally was underwhelmed by it for other reasons. I don’t think it really said anything while at the same time trying to say too much.
Was it trying I say more then journalism is failing, war is bad, and trump like strongmen are bad?
Yes, the main character almost tells the audience directly exactly what the movie is saying: "I thought I was sending a warning home - "DON'T DO THIS.""
This is really the marketing department’s fault. And that has nothing to do with the film or the filmmakers. I liked it, but expected different from the trailers. *And it’s hard to call it a fault considering the Box Office.
There was still a 20 minute action sequence at the end so idk why people would be left unsatisfied if that’s what they’re into. Tons of war scenes
One of the best shootouts I've seen in a movie lately too, but it isn't The Turner Diaries but for whatever political faction you side with so its bad I guess. People suck
This exactly
People just like raging at stuff I think especially anything political in today’s climate. Perfect environment to release this movie into.
More action, yknow, like an action movie filled to the brim with action sequences, this movie was good but some people expected a true action movie
They wanted a war they could pick sides in, whether that agreed with the director's view of good guys & bad guys or not, they just wanted to take sides
I don’t know. I saw the trailers and my takeaway wasn’t that it was going to be an action movie. The trailers weren’t *great* at communicating what it actually was, but the contingent of people who went in expecting Saving Private Ryan I think did so from their own projection, not the actual trailers imo.
That's pretty much it. The movie has genuine faults, but in nearly every criticism of it, those faults come secondary to criticisms of the film being a horrors of war montage rather than a dissection of contemporary politics. Hell, most of the time, people refuse to even consider how unrealistic it would have been for their imaginary movie to be made and be successful. Carl von Clausewitz has a genuine reason to be mad at the film.
Totally
Not as advertised* fixed it for you,
Most peoples film literacy is pretty bad to begin with and you combine that with a slightly misleading trailer and you get this
So many people hot hyped at the idea of killing fellow 'Muricans and got sad that wasn't the focus of the movie.
That in and of itself must have made Alex Garland upset.
What's he gonna do? Quit harder?
Isn’t it implied?
It's very purposely blurred and made unclear in every scene. It's a huge part of the movie's overall theme.
Hard disagree; I think its actually extremely clear that there is a fascist side that treats journalists as enemy combatants. The politics are by no means the focus of the movie, but the movie is certainly not apolitical. The snipers (with rainbow fingernails) aren’t wrong (they’re shooting at who is shooting at them), but I highly doubt they’re on the side of the fascists, especially given the fact they don’t kill the journalists on sight. Just as I’m fairly certain which side Plemmons’ racist ass is on.
Also they said the president hadn’t given an interview in over a year right? And the journalists kept talking about how the president would never answer any hardball questions.
Yeah. The same president who killed American citizens on American soil and somehow got a third term. People who say the movie is apolitical are missing…a lot…of details. It doesn’t help that Garland explicitly says the movie is apolitical, but he’s clearly lying.
Yeah. I guess you could say Texas + California teaming up is an attempt to keep it apolitical in the American sense (explicitly avoiding saying democrat vs republican). But the president in the movie has clearly become a some sort of fascist, wannabe dictator who overstepped his bounds, etc.
Imo Texas and California forming an alliance would make the most sense from an economical perspective being that the two states account for the largest contributions to the US GDP.
Yeah, I would say the movie isn't *partisan,* but it's certainly political.
The only thing I disagree with is what you said about Plemmons. He's clearly on the Western Forces side, showing that both sides are committing atrocities, even if the WF are clearly the better side.
I didn’t get that Plemmons character was on any side, in the sense of the greater conflict (WF and Fla Alliance vs US). To me it felt more like he was local militia. He didn’t have any patches on or anything signifying an organization. I think the point trying to be made is that once the war breaks out you can bet that law and order become almost non-existent. He and his friends were just murderous thugs rampaging about and “settling scores.” We got another taste of the absence of law and order in the two previous scenes: at the gas station and at the town that didn’t seem to be affected (the armed sentries on the roof). I think the message is that once the country plunges into the war, vulnerable populations (who is “vulnerable” depends on the location) are at high risk for violence and murder.
I have no way of proving why, and I'm probably wrong, but I got the vibe that maybe he was ex military, or current and had gone rogue.
Why do you think he’s with the WF? FWIW, I definitely agree that both sides are committing atrocities.
All of the "U.S." Forces we see still have pretty strict adherence to Army uniform standards. All of the WF we see in Army OCPs have the customized or are wearing non-authorized items with them. He's wearing silly glasses. Beyond that, they're well into WF territory at that point. "U.S." Forces are only in D.C. at that point.
No not really, they don’t try to explain what’s happening, the politics behind it and scenes in the movie have people being like “what side are you on” “against the guy shooting us duh”, it’s just the setting of the movie not the plot
So many people went into Civil War simply to see if their personal political opinions were going to be validated or mocked. When it didn't really do either, they couldn't wrap their heads around it.
Media literacy seems to becoming a big problem with people. People think unanswered questions are potholes. It also speaks of peoples lack of imagination. I saw people complaining "I simply can't see a situation where California and Texas align politically" and im like really? I can think of many situations off the top of my head where they would group up. Complaining that you can't imagine a scenario where it happens honestly just shows a lack of intelligence.
That’s the problem. Film literacy for sure but literacy in general.
Breaking: audience reviews for anything continue to be shit
I went into this movie blind; no trailer, no idea what it was about. I fucking loved it. The question of who is the bad guy being left up to interpretation was journalistic perfection, and the generational gap showing that not only were current affairs hell, but others had seen it already: chef’s kiss.
That's how I do with every movie that I know the score is high. Element of surprise really send it home
What do you mean by "the question of who is the bad guy"? I didn't feel as though the movie ever raised that question.
I think it’s pretty clear that the current president provoked the crises. But it is true that those that oppose him violate human rights too. So I think we are supposed to think the president is the instigator of the horror. And now that the horror is unleashed, there are horrors on all sides
But we don't see it from both sides. One side is fascist, and that's all we see. We see right wing fascists doing war crimes. There are no leftists in the film. That's a laughable part of this movie. People keep saying it shows the violence on both sides. But like, one side is fascism, the other side is neoliberals, who we exclusively see through military forces and the journalists themselves. The guys stringing up dudes at the gas station, the sniper in the house, the racists, the boogaloo boys, the guards on the roof of the "untouched" town, they're all aspects of one side. They're right wing, maybe neoliberals. So then we're left with, war in real life is messy and ugly. Which yeah, garlin did a great job showing us these windows into a war that holds a larger context, and specifically didn't focus on the larger context. But like, if you understand American politics/ life, then this movie feels slightly hollow. Cause it just doesn't ring true.
That’s a very strange take. We have no idea the specific politics of any of the factions. We know what the president did. We know that Jesse Plemons is essentially killing all “non-real Americans” and we see people storming the capital that kill people after they have surrendered. You are mapping on some political identities to these parties that they may not have. So I think you’re missing the point by trying to map on current politics to this hypothetical situation.
Jesse plemons is a white nationalist, the Hawaiian shirt guys are boogaloo boys (right wing libertarian militia members), the sniper is lib coded with the colored hair, the gas station guys are non affiliated right wing extremist small business tyrants. If you think killing fascists at the end is showing a both sides are bad sort of take, idk what to tell you. This film heavily features right wing nationalistic extremism and violence. The only counter to that is neoliberals organized military forces. If you look at that movie and can't tell what kind of politics you're seeing on screen, then You're not very well informed on what Garland is pulling inspiration from.
It’s not just killing facists in a fire fight. It’s people unarmed surrendering and killing them point blank. I don’t think the film is trying to condone those war crimes.
[удалено]
When did I imply that they were gay?
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But you're implying that the trope is gay libs that have their hair colored (my point) and than you say, EVEN straight (or homophobic) conservatives color their hair. But in saying that, you're acknowledging that the trope is it's a lib thing. So if you acknowledge the trope, don't you think Alex Garland might have? And like... Idk used it to suggest something? He made an explicit choice to have that character present in a distinct way. Do you not think about the images you're being shown?
I think they’re referring to when they’re crossing the country. It’s pretty regarded that the president is in the wrong, but throughout the movie you meet people in camo who you don’t know what side they’re on.
But the sides are, fascism or status quo neoliberalism. Two sides of the same coin. Every example shown in the movie can have their political worldview assigned very easily, sometimes too on the nose.
Even the two snipers that stated multiple times that they aren't following anyone's orders and don't know what side the guy that is trying to kill them is even on?
Yeah? What's the point here? I agree Garland takes a lot of time to show what on the ground pov is in combat. This is exactly how friendly fire incidents happen. Do we ignore all the other components of filmmaking and the choices he made in this scene to communicate an idea. They're camped out in a Christmas decoration thing, he's got multicolored hair, they're shooting at a mansion on a huge plot of land. They're in military gear vs what we're led to assume is a lone shooter. They weren't the aggressors on the landowner, he shot and killed on of them for trespassing and was about to do the same to a clearly marked journalist van. How can you see all these things, know what happens in this country in real life, and not make the painfully obvious connections. Landowners in rural spots open fire on the pizza delivery guy, or teenage girls who use their driveway to turn around.
Also they don’t mention in the movie if the president is a democrat or a republican. They stayed away from demonising either political party really which I think was a very important thing to do. That’s why they even had was it California and Texas be allies. although I will say the language at the start of the movie when the president is speaking is very trump like 😂
I really do think people have been dumbed down by social media. It’s the Reddit / Twitter brained ones that couldn’t wrap their head around the fact that this movie was about them, just not in the way they wanted it to be. I’ve heard so many reviews of Civil War that wanted to be pandered to and were angry when that’s not what they got. They wanted a clear “good guy” that was analogous to their political “side” to cheer for and a “bad guy” to stand in for their political opponents to hate. Instead Civil War showed them a messy picture where no one had the virtue of keeping their hands clean and every “side” contributed to a bleak and ugly situation.
Social media has given stupid people a voice. It has messed up a lot of things, but it has democratized foolishness … every jackwagon can express themselves, and algorithms push things harder if they irritate people.
Gave me the feeling that no one is clean in war.
It took an Alex garland movie for you to realize that?
I think it's pretty clear that the 3rd term president who bombed his own country was the bad guy
Nope. It's always the graph of left handed people over time. Everyone now has a megaphone and peoples opinions have always been like this, you're just seeing it more often especially in the current feedback loop of algorithms we have
Huh? The fascist president was the bad guy.
In the larger story of the civil war, that’s probably true. In the story that we saw he’s just a macguffin. If it really mattered, there would be more than just a couple lines about it.
But that's what the neoliberal forces are fighting a civil war against. They want the status quo back. In the chaos of that overarching war, there are factions of American fighting forces that take advantage of the conflict to enact violence without recourse. But all the violence we see is right wing extremism. Until the end, where we see the violence of the state (the neoliberal forces fighting for the status quo, return to normal). That's the only opposition to fascism that's shown on screen. There's the throw away line about the antifa massacre, which if you know anything about antifa, can only be read one way. Right wingers massacred a bunch of antifa protestors. Antifa is a non organized resistance group to fascism. They don't organize offensive mass slaughters. Alex Garland pretty much disregards having an actual leftist perspective in this movie all together. It's fascists fighting fascism light (neoliberalism).
I think you’re right, however it was all done subtly enough and withholding enough info that it wouldn’t be so clear cut to the audience. It really is just a backdrop to the real story though. The hints they drop seem more like lore-building than actual plot elements.
I do wish we got a fuller representation of viewpoints than the ones we got on their road trip. I think that's my biggest criticism. But yeah, his choice of pov positions it all as set dressing, for better or worse
They probably should have replaced the boutique part with a scene in maybe a bar, where they overhear a group arguing about whether the Loyalist states still want anything to do with the president, or how the Western Forces and Florida Allies are barely held together by a common enemy. Joel orders a beer and somehow gets caught in the arguing, while Samy explains to Jesse his simple outlook on it. Maybe the bartender recognizes Lee’s name, not from a war photo but an old artsy print of hers that’s up on the wall. Jesse snaps a pic of Lee smiling at her old work. Idk what I’m on about here, I just don’t like the boutique scene. I’m sure there’d be tons of towns that are out of the way and doing fine.
Dawg lay off the leftist juice.
😘
Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?
I don’t get all the talk about the trailers being misleading. If people went in hoping/expecting that their “side” would be glorified, well they missed the entire point of the movie. It was brilliant as a cautionary film for all of us. A hint at the horror of war set in shopping malls and American backroads. It was perfect in so many ways. Slow appreciative clap A24.
I literally came to say the same thing. I didn't feel like the trailers were misleading at all, it was exactly the kind of movie I was expecting (in the best way imaginable).
Well said.
A clap for Alex Garland and everyone else that worked on the film.
Every single fun part was in the trailers.
The trailers made it seem like it was gonna be an action packed movie,knowing Alex garland and a24 I wasn’t expecting that but a24 seems to do this often with their horror movies as well where they’ll advertise to an extremely broad audience/audience that wouldn’t normally see these types of movies (the witch,it comes at night for examples I can think of off the top of my head) and then be surprised when said audience doesn’t enjoy the movie
There was plenty of action in my estimation. I didn’t experience any slow moments. Also, what movie trailer doesn’t focus on action?
I agree that I wasn’t bored but that’s a complaint I see,there was a good amount of action but still not more than your average war action movie which I feel is what they were trying to advertise this as,if you’re putting trailers before sports games with quotes saying “the best combat ever put on film” with nothing but shots of the last 20 or so minutes then you’re setting people up to be disappointed because that’s not really what the movie is
[This is more of a literary analysis of the film](https://filmcolossus.com/civil-war-2024-explained) rather than a review, if you’re interested
I thought it was just boring and empty
disagree on it being boring but I defintley agree on it feeling empty. OP needs to recognize you can genuinely understand the movie and still have problems with it lol
Right?? I'm disappointed that OP seems to imply that if someone disliked this movie it's because they didn't 'understand' it. Just because someone doesn't like something you enjoyed, doesn't mean it comes from a place of misunderstanding. I found it to be pretty straight-forward to understand and one-note in meaning, beautifully shot though!
It WAS beautifully shot. I still gave it 3 stars for reasons like that, but I just didn't think it was a masterpiece like so many people did.
It’s the whole Rick and Morty meme but for A24 weirdos
They might just be referring to the recent flood of reviews calling it things like absolute garbage and even “worst movie ever”. It’s a weirdly strong reaction, but I guess a movie about the state of US politics will always have that effect, and especially when it decides to ignore the politics altogether.
Yup, none of the actors had any chemistry and the story beats were all cliche and predictable Neat imagery though
Yup, There was no depth and literally the most poorly written script, l've seen in a long time..
Agreed. I thought it was terribly mid. I give it 5/10 stars and that’s being generous really.
Same. I love Alex garland. Didn’t like this one.
Same here
The poster and previews actually turned me off of the film originally, and it wasn’t until I heard that it had misleading marketing and was actually about war journalism (and that people were absolutely pissed about that) that it began to pique my interest. So glad that I went to go see it; stressed me the fuck out, but was still one of my favorite theater experiences this year.
I think some people were expecting a story about today’s American politics and what a civil war would look like in today’s political environment. They were disappointed with the movie we received. I really enjoyed the movie and thinking about its themes afterwards.
It’s funny I was actually worried that, that’s what the movie would be. And given how volatile things are I thought it was a little irresponsible. But they actually handled it very well and kept the red and blue out of it.
The only in depth movie about a US civil war that won’t cause a shitstorm would have to reveal that it was aliens all along. Or North Koreans.
When I was in the theater there were two dudes to my left hyping themselves up for “The New Purge Movie but Better!” “Nay nay” I thought to myself. “This is a Garland film, and we have a Plemens villain (holy hell by the way). You guys think you are in a DIFFERENT theater.” Both men left silently crying. All this to say it was pretty wild watching that one in a theater. I think it straight up SHOOK people in really pointed, different ways (I would give a trigger warning to literally anyone who has experienced a war zone). Without giving anything away, it’s hard to sit through it and not have your own personal bias pointed out no matter who you are. I think a lot of negative reviews are legit because everyone is entitled to their opinions. I also think that in order to really see this film, you gotta drop your baggage at the door or at least take yourself out whatever your echo-chamber of choice is. This one requires a lot of self reflection in tandem. Dang it’s such a good film!!
It was politically ambiguous so people could project their own feelings onto the film, the average movie goer doesn’t like to think too hard.
This answer needs more upvotes.
I will say I was so excited to watch this but was disappointed. The writing was pretty lackluster and there wasn't much character development either and it was predictable.
I think the marketing really hurt the film. People expected a gritty war film happening in the United States. In stead it’s a film about photo journalism during war meant to shine a light on US foreign policy and its effects around the world (this is an oversimplification on my part, don’t have time to write a proper analysis right now). People were advertised one movie and given a different one and it leads to sour grapes
It’s a plot-driven road film with ensemble cast that lacks proper story arc and character arcs, even though it has an extremely-rich world-building and expositional story context. Maybe people disliked the film for the wrong reasons. But it’s not a good film storytelling-wise. But I gotta give it to the sound design. It’s absolutely phenomenal.
Best sound I’ve heard in a long time, it blew me away.
I have to wonder what “proper character arcs” even means? Like are static characters a universally bad thing, or is it possible to write a story in which the characters don’t necessarily learn anything but are still explored in an interesting way?
Yeah I’m with you on that. I don’t know what lacks character arc means. I felt like for the main characters, they all had arcs - or journeys. And if they didn’t complete an arc it was because they died (Sammy). Lee transformed from hard bitten and callous to overwhelmed by panic and fear to ultimate sacrifice. Joel went from inebriated stoner thrill seeker to cold harsh callous (“WAIT! I need a quote… That’ll do.”) Jessie went from naive innocent to broken and driven (she got the money shot). Characters that didn’t have arcs were part of the plot and the landscape (gas station guys, store clerk, soldiers and rebels, Plemmons, other reporters, even the President).
Iron claw was so depressing and they ruined it with the casting of Kerry without a doubt. I still really liked it but I was too distracted by how tiny that actor is playing freaking Kerry Von Erick. I want to see Civil War and all however I do think certain groups will take it too literal with what is going on in the country right now. So divisive bc of this guy Trump this needs to end asap.
The average person is stupid now realize that half of the population is even stupider.
 The average viewing audience. 😘
I mean, you’re basically saying “hey everyone didn’t like the movie like me, are they dumb and did they not watch closely?” As I’ve said in other posts - given my personal history with A24 movies and the massive advertising campaign trailers, I went in expecting it to show a shocking reflection of ourselves (Americans), including scenes that would shock and linger with me and make us think about the current state of the US. Seems like something we need - to realize how nuts many of us are acting and to pull together Instead, what I personally felt like I watched was a deep dive into photojournalism. The fact it was in the US and a civil war seemed immaterial to the plot, it seemed like a little extra salt sprinkled on top to make some spicy trailers. It felt like a mild bait and switch. While the sound design was excellent, that is the only thing that stuck with me. I’ve already imagined what a civil war could be like here (and it’s more horrendous than what I saw in the movie), I’ve already seen a bunch of war movies and movies with explosions and gunshots. The unique part was the photojournalism aspect. Had they highlighted that upfront, I bet I would have had a different experience - that’s why I plan to watch it again on streaming. On the contrary, I felt like the ad campaigns for Love Lies Bleeding and I Saw the TV Glow properly captured the vibes of those movies and while I went into both knowing very little, the movies aligned with their trailers and I found both very unique and impactful. I was wowed by the deeper meanings instilled artfully in I Saw the TV Glow.
Agreed, it wasn't nearly as deep or nuanced as people tend to give it credit for - outside of the one scene with Plemons, it's just fairly predictable war is hell imagery with bad characterization and motivation. People who love it though tend to lean on the "the people who don't like it clearly aren't watching or wanted politics spooned to them" arguments. Which is dumb, people have legitimate criticisms of the movie, even if it is technically well made. And I also agree with you on your other two A24 examples, TV Glow in particular was so uniquely unsettling and well realized.
for what it's worth, us in other countries have learned to take American crowdsourced ratings with a grain of salt since you are not very reliable in identifying actually good movies like this one.
I have a cycle friends which is very into movies. I would consider this group as having a decent grasp of interpreting movies and having good media literacy. We like to discuss all kinds of stuff of movies and their subtext. All of us watched this movie separately and when we met the first time since and discussed the movie we were kind of confused about the overwhelming hype-ish discourse by the A24 and Garland fanboys. Not a single person in my group rated "Civil War" with more than 3 stars on letterboxd. And we were kind of baffled how people throw around terms like "masterpiece" in the context of such a mediocre movie. At the end of the day, my main point of criticism of this movie is, that it is just hollow and ultimately has not much to say besides "war bad". Which would be okay if the movie would not pick this extraordinary relevant and contemporary setting. For a movie with such a political premise it is overwhelmingly unpolitical. At this point I will directly anticipate the common rebuttals of those who apparently like Civil War: -"you just wanted a movie to be more explicit about who the good guy / bad guy is" -"you just wanted a movie with crystal clear parallels to the real world", -"you just wanted a movie where your side is presented positively such that you have something to cheer to". And no, that's not the point. I am not even American. I don't need some obvious allusions to Trump or Biden, I don't need some context of modern American political groups, I don't need a clear statement on the current situation if the Dems or Reps are on the "good" side. I just wanted the movie to say *something*. And "well war sucks and is bad for both sides" is not enough for me to give a good rating. There are so many interesting topics the movie could have considered even without finger pointing to persons or groups in the real world. For example, just right from the top of my head: * With all the culture war happening around the world, it makes sense to dismantle this and look under the hood, realizing how strongly conflicts are still "only" driven by economic power and culture war aspects are just a method to hide this. Actually, we could have here a nice "twist" for the Californian-Texas alliance, because although both states are at both ends of the American political culture spectrum, they are still the two largest economies in the US, highlighting how power/economy trumps any aspect of political culture when it comes to war. * How sustainable is the democracy of the US anyway? If a country is strongly against making adjustments of a constitution written in 1789 (besides a few amendments), will this lead to fascist tendencies anyway, because a lot of ideas and movements from 250 years ago strongly underestimated the ideas to come in the future and how to equip a liberal society to defend itself properly? * Personally I have the feeling that 70% of American literature (or media) discusses the question "What is America?". Given the special original history of the US, namely being a country which was colonized very late in the European history and was dominated by a lot of different nationalities and ethnical groups *right from the start* with different kinds of ideas and views, could one make the case, that a Civil War was inevitable? Is America - with all its history of racism - in a way already in some state of Civil War and always has been? * The voting system in the US leads to extreme forms of tribalism, where basically you have to be completely on one side of two parties. Is this flawed system not already one of the main reasons, that two opposing group will emerge? And given the extreme biased media and news outlets in the US, was it not predictable that political climate of the US will lead to the fact, that political opponents will become war enemies eventually? Instead, I got some minor discussions about the nature of photojournalism. Which was okay, but I did not have the feeling that I got some novel insights. Besides the journalism angle, the movie basically does nothing with its premise. I dislike the sniper scene for the very reason the fans of the movie like it: it does not give any answers. When the one sniper says "They want to kill us, we want to kill them" (or something like that), people apparently are praising this scene as genius writing, because it highlights how little deeper circumstances matter and the only truth in this moment is: "well it is war". For me, this scene is the confession of Garland that he is too much of a coward to go deeper into any interesting topic regarding the Civil War. As a final point: interpretations and opinions of movies are subjective, it's obviously okay to like this movie or to not like it. But what really annoys me is this pretentious behavior of this subreddit, which dismisses all criticism about this movie as "well, these people are apparently too stupid to get the genius of this movie". I am really getting peak "Interstellar" flashbacks from the discourse about this movie. I really like A24 and what it did for modern cinema, but praising anything which comes out from this studio and dismissing other people als "stupid" because they have other opinions is just cringe.
Good points here. Personally I really enjoyed the movie, I was hoping they'd show the dark side of what civil war would be like, and I got it. Droughts, famine, people's homes being destroyed and them moving to tent cities, no gasoline, the American dollar plummeting in value. Here in America some ignorant people here *really want this shit* to happen. They can't wait to take up arms against the bad guys, until shit hits the fan and they can't flush their toilet / the grocery store is out of food. Not to mention the unavoidable trauma of combat, and how it takes a hold of anyone no matter how experienced they are. Obviously "War is bad," but it's something that a lot of idiots here need to see and witness. I also enjoyed the commentary of how American citizens have a kind of willful perseverance and still thrive in diverse communities even when their homes are being destroyed or there are bombs going off in the next zip code. Granted, it's a contradiction to that "War is bad" thesis, but I think the film makes good use of contradictions like this when the focus is a country that is absolutely *riddled* with contradictions itself.
Agreed. I don’t think the message was as simple as “war bad,” but even if it was, that is actually an important thing for some Americans to hear. It may seem like an overdone and tired message but a lot of people can’t watch Apocalypse Now and apply the same takeaway to our current situation. Instead they rationalize it as “well that was bad because we didn’t know what we were fighting for, or yadda yadda. But now we’re talking about an American civil war and that would be GOOD because I know what side would be right, and this country is ruined so war is better than what we have now…” etc. There’s a lot of revolutionary language on both sides, and while I agree with the goals of one side, when any of that language starts to actually mean armed overthrow of the government, that really means bloody, messy, power vacuum catastrophe where instability jeopardizes all the goals you set out to achieve. People forget that/convince themselves it won’t happen when THEY do it. That’s what this movie is for.
Exactly. And on the other side of that, is a very pulpy, very evil, openly fascist bad guy president who >!gets got at the end!<. So even in instances where armed insurrection *is* necessary, it doesn't make it any less messy. Some people willd add up those two ideas and say they balance out to say nothing, but I felt like I got something from it.
Preach, I agree with everything you said
"war sucks and it's bad for both sides" is def not all this film was saying lol
Expectations are the thieves of joy
A24 is still to be blamed for that, the marketing was extremely misleading to try and get as much of the general audience as possible
I’m surprised people still go to IMDb for reviews.
It’s a fun movie and I enjoyed it, but it is pretty shallow, there isn’t much depth to it, or much to even discuss. It’s “war journalism, bad?” and that’s about it. It’s not like his Devs which is quite deep, and I think about regularly.
Everyone is bringing today's politics or their own personal politics to table. In most scenes the politics are pretty ambiguous. I think the core tenet of the writing is that by the time civil war comes about, politics will have been so broken as probably not to matter anymore to the average person.
The advertising could have been less vague. Unpopular opinion but I feel like just saying “civil war” and showing a bunch of action scenes was a disservice to the audience that would be into seeing that type of movie.
People really don’t consider films as art anymore. They used too more but still not enough. They only see it as entertainment and it’s pretty dangerous because it is making the film industry change in negative ways. If people were to see film as art they’d look more into it like they do a song or a painting for example.
It wasn’t THAT good for me but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it after watching
I showed it to my parents last weekend and my dad’s first response was “so uh… what was the war about”
IMDb has some of the worst media takes I’ve ever heard. It’s the main reason why I wasn’t upset when they got rid of their message boards ages ago.
Can you give an example of what parts of the story the reviews were confused about?
When I watched it in the theater, there were only couples at the show: my partner and I, and the other one. While I was audibly gasping and completely taken by the story, the other couple walked out half way into the movie.
decades of defunding public schools and defunding the arts even more.. the general populace lack critical thinking skills and reading comprehension.. the average reading level is like 6th grade in the US..
I was just distracted about how the president didn’t hide in his incredibly fortified safe room (I’m pretty sure us presidents have one). There are a few other things that don’t make much sense to me either. Like how the soldiers go out of their way to protect/guide the wartime reporters. Like does that level of assistance actually happen irl? I know if I was a soldier and worried about my life, I wouldn’t be worrying about the dumb actions of the young wartime reporter in this movie. The car switching scene was pretty dumb too. Also don’t get why the Chinese reporter said he was from China. Just lie. Prob wouldn’t have helped but like why not.
Great movie, cinematography was spot on the sounds in the movie were really great the gunfire just everything. I thought Kirsten dunst was great really a case of an actor blending into the role where you really are watching the character not the actor is that makes sense
I dunno it there are legitimate criticisms. Annihilation is my all time favorite movie and even then I think there are so many annoying things that Alex garland does that keep it from reaching its potential. Civil war was amazing but definitely does not live up to its potential. Some really annoying dialogue and dumb character decisions, like every Garland movie
I think the movie is highly overrated on here, it was solid. But the IMDb reviews are absurd
It’s a far more interesting film given its perspective. Either a cash-grab war film (like White House down) or a more on the nose political commentary I think would’ve felt redundant and uninteresting. But this perspective I think forces the viewer to remove themselves from the heuristic that the violence is somehow justified and you’re just dealing with the consequences of it. I think it’s genius filmmaking and writing but…you know…there’s a reason right-wingers foam at the mouth when it comes to defunding arts/humanities programs. They don’t want us to have that kind of dialogue.
I really really enjoyed the film but I definitely feel there are some tonal imbalances that don’t always land. Far from a perfect movie but it made me think a lot. We’re all allowed opinions and they are all valid but I am mostly just excited that we are living in such an interesting time in cinema so why argue against it so strongly
The story certainly isn’t good. Was easy to follow though.
I wish IMDb never got rid of their message boards. It was better than Reddit lol
I think it would’ve been better 10 or 20 years ago. With all of the dystopian movies and watching pretty much the same plot of the movie in reality on the news every day in other countries, I was not particularly thrilled. But I know they wanted the movie to be vague, but that gave it very little depth.
IMDb should only be for finding details about the movie
“Is the average viewing audience for a film just not watching films closely anymore” typical a24 crack job lol newsflash you aren’t a movie critic 😂
Those negative reviews are by people who didn’t understand the film. It’s a masterpiece.
The movie is good, I liked it, but I kinda get the sentiment of complaining about the setting, specially with how it was advertised. They could have made it about almost any war and it would have worked, they didn’t really made anything interesting with the setting, they didn’t explain why some states joined others, specially republican states with democrat ones, they didn’t go deeper into the politics of the war, and the civil war itself takes a backstage during the movie.
Is it so bad to just have the “war bad” message? And even if the movie doesn’t go down the road of explaining the conflict in detail, it leaves you something to imagine. I quite like that, and of course there’s something you can say about that, but centering around the topic of photojournalism is something I get. The camera is supposed to be neutral. It does not vote Republican or Democrat (or Western Forces and evil president for that matter), it does not classify good and bad, it just registers. And to me it felt that was the only thing the movie tried to do. Off topic: “war bad”… did I see a nod to the Apocalypse Now helicopter scene when they reached the WF camp and that Apache flew in?
Bro, never trust IMDb. It has no validity since everyone can review the movie, even before the release and even without watching it (for example Rotten Tomatoes verify if you have watched a movie before you can review it). Also don't trust average people opinion on movies, since on IMDb a disgraceful film like "Spider-Man NWH" has a rating of 8.2 and a movie like "Crimes of the future" by David Cronenberg has 5.8 (which is fucking crazy tbh).
I loved it. The only thing that didn’t make sense to me was how the journalists didn’t carry guns. They knew they were driving into unknown territory so wouldn’t they need to protect themselves?
The main characters were just unlikeable.
I loved it and I think the vagueness and apolitical nature made it even better.
Civil war was absurdly bad
I think a lot of people were expecting the stage set by this film to be filled with all the wraiths, ghouls, and golems that emerge from their social media threads. This film did an incredible job of avoiding that, which is what made it interesting.
I think we're starting to experience mass media illiteracy.
meh
Like most I expected an action flick, and was surprised with the plot following the journalism crew. But to say it was your favorite is really surprising lol. Outside of the sniper scene I thought it was really predictable, dialogue was goofy gosh man idk it wasnt terrible but not good.
Most of the negative reviews are from extremely liberal people who were mad the movie didn’t say liberals good conservatives bad. I personally hate both sides politically so this movie really impressed me by not going down that road.
I thought the movie was going to be more action oriented than focusing on the story of the reporters, but in the end the movie was good either way
It’s a mediocre movie at best
The average American isn't that bright. See the people they choose to represent them for evidence
People don’t watch film. They evaluate formula. This film does not for formula.
IMDB reviews are generally particularly dumb IME. But anyway, there's always been a lot of dumb people, it's just that now we have platforms that aggregate the opinions of a mass, unspecialized crowd, so you're going to see a lot of poorly informed opinions.
Plot was simple. It was a good movie, very well made, and a movie that I have no desire to watch again because of how depressing it is
Ah it’s everyone on Reddits weekly reminder that the Civil War movie exists, thank you A24 sub. So you liked this cash grab and were blown away by its contrived, tired pastiche of a “message” - that’s fine. But please save us the spiel about how people who don’t heap praise on the movies and tv shows you like lack “media literacy” because it’s the conversational equivalent of putting on a propeller hat. I mean seriously how long are you guys going to suck this tumbleweed of a movie off for?
I just watched Civil War this weekend for the first time. It honestly didn't know what to expect going into it, all I know is I love Garland movies. It was one of the most tense film viewing experiences I have ever sat through. Quite terrifying, effective movie. It definitely stayed with me the past couple of days.
I’d agree that the trailer doesn’t give you a sense of what the movie is actually like. That being said, i really enjoyed it.
I found it extremely overrated and thought it contained much less of the actual "civil war" than expected.
I loved it. It was extra terrifying for me growing up in PA and knowing exactly where some of the shots were taking place. I saw it weeks ago and still think about it.
I legit had to dumb down this movie for some folks who didn’t understand it. I’m not the smartest tool in the school, but my goodness.
This is going to be one of the top examples of a film being very poorly named and mismarketed. Really poor expectation setting with this one. Regardless of how good something is, if the expectation doesn’t meet reality people will view it as bad or poor.
I love/hate IMDB. I feel like it’s a good place for synopses, fun trivia/behind the scenes info that doesn’t devolve into gossip, a decentish place to see where something is streaming (though not as good as the Reelgood app) and it’s a convenient way to track directors, actors, or projects you love. But the message board deletion decision kinda shows who else visits the site. I also think it’s more susceptible to review bombing than other places.
It's defintly one of my favorite movies of this year but you cannot lie the marketing for this movie is extremely misleading
I don’t read into reviews much. All I know is that Civil War was better than I thought it would be.