Tag: humor

Civil War: Alex Garland’s Most Challenging Film Yet

Reviewed by Brian P. Bechner for TheHumbleHeckler.com.

(Editor’s note: Film critic Brian P. Bechner is a lifelong insomniac who often experiences hallucinations while reviewing films. Keep this in mind when reading the following article.)

Reimagining history is a dicey undertaking. Every artistic interpretation of a real-life event or use of artistic license is fraught with potential for misunderstanding. Reimagining the American Civil War as a futuristic dystopian nightmare is even riskier. But if anyone can pull it off it’s Alex Garland, a man whose filmography oscillates between hits and misses, but is never lacking in courage. The hits include virtuosic sci-fi think pieces like Ex Machina (2014), Annihilation (2018), and Men (2022). And, unfortunately, the misses include comedic headscratchers such as Fart Academy (2016) and the regrettably titled sequel Fart Academy Number Two: Return of the Stank Monster (2019).

With Civil War, Garland wisely leaves comedy behind in favor of a searing drama that recasts the actual Civil War as a future hellscape as witnessed by a group of intrepid journalists, each of whom represents a real-world historical counterpart. For example, Kirsten Dunst is almost unrecognizable as Lee Smith, the film’s fictional version of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. We are also introduced to Stephen McKinley as Edwin Stanton (Lincoln’s real-life secretary of war), and most notably, Nick Offerman as President Lincoln.

This brand of thinly veiled fiction as antiwar allegory makes for a strange viewing experience, equally brilliant and frustrating. But I guess that’s only fitting for a film that clearly revels in stark contrasts. And I mean stark. An intense, beautifully choreographed battle sequence is immediately followed by 20 minutes of uninterrupted knitting. An intellectually stimulating conversation about the nature of war is literally interrupted by a belching contest. Drunken slap fights, beer pong, and competitive strip Yahtzee battles are intercut with scenes pondering the futility of violence, the finality of death, and the gravity of political instability. This thing is either a total mess or an unqualified masterpiece.     

Granted, I hadn’t slept in almost three days when I saw the film, and I was running on whatever energy I could cull from caffeine pills, black coffee, and countless OTC stimulants, but large swaths of this movie just don’t make sense. For example: Why is there a dance sequence featuring the Muppets? Who thought it was a good idea to cast Mike Tyson as Ulysses S. Grant? And why is the film’s score performed by a 75-piece orchestra of kazoos and slide whistles?

So … if you came here looking for answers, I have none to offer. But I will say that I haven’t stopped thinking about Civil War since the moment the screen went dark. That must mean something. Despite its narrative flaws and gaping holes in logic, I give Civil War five thumbs up … or ten cups of coffee … or something like that. I’m too tired to care anymore.

(Civil War is rated R for graphic depictions of war, puppet nudity, repeated use of the word poopie, hamster-on-hamster violence, disturbing facial hair, and adult situations.)