I am huge fan of writer/director Alex Garland. I've loved his movies all the way back to 28 Days Later and Sunshine. His last movie, Men, was highly ambitious and memorable but didn't work for me. It was his first miss. Civil War is his second, but for very different reasons.
Rather than being ambitious and memorable, Civil War is so normal and bland. I felt bored for the entire runtime, even the action scenes. Why? Because this movie doesn't have a story. It has a premise and does the bare minimum with that premise.
The entire plot, which we find out at the beginning, is traveling from point A to point B. And it's dangerous. That's it. That's the whole purpose of the movie. It's also the purpose of a random episode of The Walking Dead. Or The Last of Us.
The characters meander. The story meanders. The movie meanders. That's what I just spent two hours watching. A bunch of meandering. And you can throw in some well-shot action sequences. But I just didn't care. I was literally thinking to myself during the climax, "I don't care."
It reminded me of another movie that had so much hype and was a huge letdown. Battle Los Angeles was about an alien invasion. Yet the entire focus was a mission to rescue a group of civilians. It's a very regular story with a sci-fi skin on it. Civil War is a very regular story with dystopian skin.
Look, this isn't a poor-quality movie. It just has no substance. It feels like nothing. And I had a terrible time watching it.
(1 viewing, early access screening IMAX 4/8/2024)
Rather than being ambitious and memorable, Civil War is so normal and bland. I felt bored for the entire runtime, even the action scenes. Why? Because this movie doesn't have a story. It has a premise and does the bare minimum with that premise.
The entire plot, which we find out at the beginning, is traveling from point A to point B. And it's dangerous. That's it. That's the whole purpose of the movie. It's also the purpose of a random episode of The Walking Dead. Or The Last of Us.
The characters meander. The story meanders. The movie meanders. That's what I just spent two hours watching. A bunch of meandering. And you can throw in some well-shot action sequences. But I just didn't care. I was literally thinking to myself during the climax, "I don't care."
It reminded me of another movie that had so much hype and was a huge letdown. Battle Los Angeles was about an alien invasion. Yet the entire focus was a mission to rescue a group of civilians. It's a very regular story with a sci-fi skin on it. Civil War is a very regular story with dystopian skin.
Look, this isn't a poor-quality movie. It just has no substance. It feels like nothing. And I had a terrible time watching it.
(1 viewing, early access screening IMAX 4/8/2024)