Big Picture Big Sound

We live in divided times - perhaps you've heard? For anyone who has ever walked through a room where cable news was on, a commentator was likely saying this phrase. "Civil War," the new movie from writer-director Alex Garland ("Ex Machina", "Sunshine"), aims to bring that very sentiment to life with frustrating, though occasionally thrilling, results.

"Civil War" had its premiere at this year's South by Southwest Festival, where it was met with praise, but the reaction felt like a primer for what was to come. Garland's film is built to be divisive, and the most maddening part about "Civil War" is that it often feels like that's its only objective. Some have cheered the movie as a masterpiece, others have called it too one-sided, and a mix of people have felt it shies away from taking a stance on American politics. It's not a movie's job to reinforce one's political beliefs, and Garland doesn't aim to appease one political side or the other.

Garland's goal is to take our divided country and heighten it for startling popcorn entertainment. As an action-thriller, "Civil War" can be immersive and stunning, with a few particularly breathtaking sequences. But the social commentary is ever-present, and Garland doesn't add anything new to the conversation. The muscularity of the filmmaking is impressive, but rarely hides the fact that "Civil War" is just empty provocation.

As the movie opens, the president (Nick Offerman) is addressing the nation about Texas and California, two states that have seceded from the United States. They have formed an alliance called The Western Front, having joined together with the common goal of taking down the president. Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a veteran war photographer, and her reporter Joel (Wagner Moura) aim to travel to Washington D.C. from New York to interview the president. They are joined - much to the hesitation of both - by longtime reporter Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and novice photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), who looks up to the hardened Lee.

For the most part, "Civil War" is a road trip movie about an unlikely foursome, crammed in a van as they traverse the fictional war-torn America. The images Garland presents are upsetting and bleak as the travelers witness a country turned upside down. In one of her best performances, Dunst's Lee barely bats an eye at what has unfolded, but there is more happening behind her world-weary eyes than she likes to let on. Her character is a great juxtaposition with Spaeny's naïve Jessie, who desperately wants to be in the midst of battle, capturing the best photos possible, but doesn't have Lee's steady hand.

Later in the movie, Jesse Plemmons show up for one scene, which is a sequence in "Civil War" that will lock you to the screen. It's an example of Garland really knowing what kind of movie he is making; but when "Civil War" aims to comment about its United States, it all rings hollow. There's a pervasive sense that Garland was aiming to court controversy, but "Civil War" truly never rises to that level.