This was an enjoyable movie. It was exciting and captivating, and it had action. Civil War is a 2024 film directed by Alex Garland. It is set in a time in America where there is a civil war going on in the country between the government and the Western forces. It focuses on a team of photojournalists who are trying to get to Washington D.C. to interview the president before the Western forces overtake the city. The film’s goal seems to be to make a comment on the political landscape of America and also a comment on the media. One of those goals didn’t really happen, while the other did. 

Alex Garland is a director from England, but that doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to make a comment on American politics or that he’s not qualified to do so. However, he didn’t really seem to make any comment in the film. The political views of the two sides fighting aren’t really known, they can somewhat be assumed but nothing is concrete. I don’t know if this film needed to make the sides concrete because it possibly was more of a comment on how polarized the U.S. has become. Also, I thought it was funny that the Western forces were an alliance between California and Texas.

Although this movie was presented as a big political commentary movie, it actually seemed to be more about the media and the ethics around it. Lee, one of the main photographers, is largely desensitized to the war and is constantly taking pictures of events that should be more shocking. There is one specific scene right after a bombing where she runs over and takes pictures of dead bodies. Her first instinct isn’t to help the people injured but to take pictures. The war starts to get to her by the end of the film and she can’t really seem to take photos anymore. However, for this newer photographer named Jessie, the opposite seems to happen. Jessie starts out very hesitant to take photos of these events and is very sensitive to them. As the film goes on that changes, with eventually her making a stupid decision to try and get the shot. 

The journalists are in the white house with a team of troops from the Western forces. The troops’ goal is to find the president and kill him. They are in this hallway in a shootout with the Secret Service. Jessie, to get a photo of this fight, runs out into the middle of the hallway and is completely exposed to the bullets. She’s about to get shot when Lee jumps in front of her and sacrifices herself.  This seems to be a commentary on journalists but also fame and almost selfishness. These people are so obsessed with getting the shot and the feeling that comes with it, that they are risking their lives for it. I am also surprised about how the press was just allowed the travel with the soldiers the whole time and that the soldiers were so eager to help them capture images while they were fighting. 

I think this sense of the movie kind of relates to Nope in the way that the characters are obsessed with getting the money shot. In Nope they are trying to get a picture of the Alien and in this movie, they are trying to get a picture of the president. 

The editor did this cool thing where sometimes while a photographer was taking pictures it would cut to the image that was taken and so there were a lot of stills in the movie. 

Image: Picture taken by one of the photojournalists in movie

Overall, I thought this movie was good but not great. It was entertaining but there were definitely some aspects that could be improved on.