Immaculately staged and harrowingly immersive action masks a certain moral hollowness in this alternate-reality dystopia

Full Review | Original Score: 3 | Jun 2, 2024

As a piece of action cinema, Civil War is nearly flawless. But as a story, it falls short.

Full Review | May 29, 2024

It’s too simplistic to call Civil War a polemic or a cautionary tale – it’s a smorgasbord of food for thought, its urgent and incisive visual and thematic construction generating a bracing immediacy.

Full Review | May 28, 2024

It has a gripping start that is validated by synthesizing the dystopian future of a divided nation, but, unfortunately, its road trip remains located in a gratuitous zone that uses the characters as simple expository vehicles. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | May 26, 2024

An ambiguous anti-war film. There’s no speechifying or talking down to the viewer — it’s up for us to decide how it all went very wrong.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | May 25, 2024

Garland is more interested in exploiting the current landscape for a high concept than exploring its evolution or the human nature that brought us here. A story of wartime journalism could have been done anywhere or any time. He chose now and failed.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | May 22, 2024

While not a horror film per se, the story shows a concern in a Twilight Zone-ish way of what we may become if we keep down the path we're on. It's well-made but will certainly be divisive, but that just seems appropriate given the subject

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | May 22, 2024

Civil War is as brilliant as it is harrowing.

Full Review | May 21, 2024

Whether it’s a preview of America’s future seems beside the point — because it works so effectively as a fractured mirror of our unsettled present.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | May 20, 2024

Rather than the toothless mess of banal political equivocation that people suggested it would be based on little more than a trailer and some promotional material, Civil War is as incisive and biting as any political thriller released this century.

Full Review | Original Score: A | May 13, 2024

Alex Garland’s latest directorial effort depicts a United States torn apart from within. It’s a visceral and harrowing journey.

Full Review | May 10, 2024

This is not a film that pulls punches. But ultimately it’s not a film about war, it’s a film about who records the war.

Full Review | May 9, 2024

Civil War is a better film about photojournalism than it is about the implosion of American society, with Garland subtly suggesting that just about nobody knows who or what they should be firing at. Whatever the case, it is never less than gripping.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 9, 2024

Poaching the extreme divisiveness of American politics to examine societal collapse through the cypher of photojournalism is a bit misguided because the film isn't really about the war (or those dividing components).

Full Review | Original Score: C | May 8, 2024

Watched CIVIL WAR. Interesting commentary on desensitization Characters stoic amidst violence in the Global South have breakdowns when war overtakes America For many, western lives just matter more, others seen as “predestined” to suffer. Overall, solid

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 8, 2024

Garland’s movie is the epitome of unsettling, the most harrowing road movie you’ll ever watch. It'll rattle your cages, but it’s truly best to see this one in a big theater. Do it for Dunst. She gives it all here, and it looks natural.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | May 7, 2024

A stone-cold stunner that captivates from start to finish.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 6, 2024

While I admired its unbiased portrayal of a troubling hypothetical, the narrative’s execution left something to be desired, veering into a rather predictable finale.

Full Review | May 3, 2024

The result is a complex film that serves as a paean to the bravery of war reporters but also a cautionary tale about the ethics of pursuing a scoop whatever the cost.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 2, 2024

The film’s warnings, which Garland means to be serious and dire, feel frivolous, irresponsible, and pretentious.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 1, 2024