From a marketing perspective, there was no time like 2024 to release Civil War, the latest from English director Alex Garland (renowned for science-fiction brain-benders Ex Machina and Annihilation). This year will see citizens of at least 64 countries go to the polls, representing almost half of the global population. Perhaps most universally-watched of these elections is the one in our very own U S of A, in which a growing rift between Republicans and Democrats, fueled by their old and far-from-perfect presidential candidates, has been pointed to by many commentators as a real risk. The Financial Times recently ran an article pointing to the "prospect that the election kicks off a Second US Civil War," which cites that 43% of Americans polled believe that a civil war is "Somewhat" or "Very Likely" in the next ten years. 

So Garland's film is extraordinarily timely — which may explain why Civil War won over production studio A24, for whom the film's $50 million budget makes it the most expensive in-house production yet. And it also in turn explains the success of the movie at the box office, where it's pulled in over $100 million and is creeping up on Everything Everywhere All At Once to take the mantle of A24's highest-grossing film.

But relevance to current events aside, Civil War isn't a good movie. In its illogical, narratively confusing, and tonally inconsistent sub-two-hour runtime, there are two potentially good ideas for two separate films: one about a relationship between a veteran war journalist and a young upstart; and one about an American civil war in the 21st century. But Garland muddles the two together, leaving audiences with a half-baked final product. 

The film opens up with Ye Olde Expositional TV Montage, which explains that the increasingly authoritarian US government, led by a third-term president, has been faced with secession by the "Western Forces" of Texas and California. Three components of this introduction highlight what become serious problems with the movie as whole. You may have picked up on the first, which is that to any American viewer, the Texas-California "Western Forces" alliance is incomprehensible. Sure, the two states are the ones that have the biggest egos, and most commonly casually suggest independence from the union in real life, but without fleshing out the developments that led to active cooperation between the two radically opposed state governments, the collaboration foments immediate disbelief. And by taking the audience out of the world-building so quickly, Garland's near-future America becomes fantasy instead of, as I'm sure he intends, a warning grounded in reality. Throughout the rest of the film, each reference to the Western Forces once again shakes us out of plausibility. 

In that same vein, the central antagonist the film is the unnamed fascist president, whose brutality in response to secession has included airstrikes against American citizens, widespread martial law, and violent authoritarianism in all its other forms. But inexplicably, Garland casts comedian Nick Offerman, best known for his role as lovable libertarian Ron Swanson in Parks and Recreation. Offerman's president's power tie and political posturing immediately evokes this sillier TV role and undercuts the believability of his character, significantly softening what needs to be a centrally menacing role for the whole plot to work.

Obvious immediate script and casting issues aside, the third such immediate problem is the movie's consistently terrible song choices and miscalculated needledrops, which begin here in the form of the oddly jazzy 1960s bop "Lovefingers" by the Silver Apples, which undercuts the gravitas of the clips playing for context. (Similar off-punk song choices, including "Say No Go" by De La Soul and "Sweet Little Sister" by Skid Row, feel just as out of place later in the film, and make no sense alongside the spacious, spooky score from Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow with song titles like "Execution" and "Body Pit".) 

Expositional background aside, we now in the "present" meet Lee, a decorated war photographer and journalist. She narrowly survives a suicide bombing attempt in New York City, where she helps a much younger amateur photojournalist named Jessie who's also in the wreckage. That night, Lee meets two other journalists, Joel and Sammy, over drinks in a hotel bar that suffers frequent war-caused power outages. Lee, Joel, and Sammy plan to travel south together; even though they'll be passing through dangerous territory (a no-man's land for broad and unspecified reasons, as the entire eastern seaboard is still loyal to the union), Lee and Joel are determined to interview the president before Washington, D.C. falls, and Sammy wants to cover the frontlines in Virginia. In the morning, it's revealed that the young Jessie has convinced Joel she should be allowed to travel with the troupe (against Lee's advice), and the four embark on their drive to the capital. 

Here, our two theoretical films diverge. The former would be a big-budget sci-fi action film dedicated to the titular conflict. Aspects of the journalists' journey succeed in showcasing the horrors of civil war and applying them to a uniquely modern American context. A tense standoff between servicemen and a rogue sniper leads to smart observations about the broader politics of war being irrelevant when someone is actively, in the moment, trying to kill you. A firefight puts on uncanny display of how involved war photographers can be in the act of combat itself. A violent and nerve-wracking scene featuring Jesse Plemons as an ultranationalist militiaman highlights the otherization and xenophobia that pervade our language in real life. 

But more often than not on this first front, Garland looks to get a wry smile out of the audience with cheap writing. When a character's offer to pay with "dollars" is batted down, she clarifies, "Canadian dollars!" and is accepted (of course a jab against the long-running American joke that the Canadian dollar is perpetually a couple bucks less valuable). One character informs a store clerk that there's a "pretty huge civil war going on," to which she replies noncommittally with teenaged vocal fry, "yeah, we just try to stay out" (an eyebrow-raise at those who ignore real political problems out of personal convenience). Two characters practice their photography on a downed military helicopter in a superstore parking lot (playing up the silliness of the juxtaposition). The whole movie flirts with comparing the fascist president to Trump, but never commits to a specific stance on real-life politics. And beyond just the shortcomings of the script, even the grandiose action shots all feel inferior to concepts that were executed clearer, more convincingly, and more terrifyingly in Modern Warfare 2's story campaign combat through Northern Virginia and into the White House.

The latter film, then, could have been an interesting character study of a cynical old journalist mentoring a younger woman trying to make a name for herself in the career. Garland intends this to be the emotional throughline of the movie, as Lee discusses her job with Jessie, coaching her to become fact-based and desensitized to violence, but still empathetic to her subjects. But the characters are never nearly fleshed-out enough because of how much of the screentime needs to be dedicated to the "first" movie of explaining the civil war and showing the degradation of American society. The graphic nature of war journalism is jarring — and evokes the best parts of the since-shuttered Newseum in DC — and spending more time thoughtfully exploring what the job does to a person through the eyes of Lee and Jessie at bookends of the career would have been fascinating. Alas, there's just no time. 

On that same note, casting choices are mixed. Kristen Dunst is well-cast as the steely Lee, but her backstory could have been much better shown instead of told. Cailee Spaeny is decent as young Jessie, but is given scant dialogue to work with. Wagner Moura isn't right for the role of Joel; his bad-boy Brazilian ethos oozes too much cool for what should've been a more uncertain, playful character. Stephen McKinley Henderson is typecast as the wise older gentleman in what becomes a one-note role. None of their merry band of journalists is given enough room to breathe between shots of wartorn American and plot developments squeezed into the sub-two-hour runtime.

Garland could have made either of two movies and succeeded. Instead, he tries to make both and fails.