Civil War
Not the historical event and not the Captain America movie either.
Reminder for reviews: I'm only really going to talk about what stood out to me, so anything I don't bring up is most likely just fine.
If an issue isn't bad enough to detract from the experience, then that's a good thing - just like something not standing out as being noteworthy doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing.
It's perfectly fine for a thing to serve its purpose and nothing more.
MOVIES
- Civil War plot summary: In a dystopian future, four journalists travel across the United States during a nation-wide conflict. While trying to survive, they aim to reach the White House to interview the president before he is overthrown. (IMDb)
- Following on from Alien: Romulus last week, Civil War makes it two Cailee Spaeny movies in a row, although I do think this is just about the better of the two.
- There's also the fact that I can't really remember the trailers, so I went into the movie waiting to see what it served, rather than having any expectations that could bias my view.
- I just wanted to state that because a lot of the criticism I've seen of Civil War seems to be based on what people wanted/expected it to be, rather than what it is.
- That's not to say that some of the criticisms were unfounded, in particular the bizarre political make-up of the very much Divided States of America in the movie.
- I get that the focus is more on the characters and to show how horrible any civil war can be, but the world of the film is a just a little too hard to accept, which does somewhat undermine the premise of the film.
- The character work is still top notch, with Spaeny, Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura and Stephen McKinley Henderson making for a very interesting quartet to follow, especially how Spaeny and Dunst's characters develop over the course of the story.
- It's just the world they live in doesn't make sense, even disregarding how Civil War pretty much makes it clear that the conflict doesn't end when the movie does.
- I think a little more consideration about which groups would ally with each other, or at least some kind explanation why those alliances were formed, would have helped immensely.
- Fortunately, following the lead quartet and the experiences they have travelling from New York to Washington DC are intriguing and horrifying enough in equal measure to regularly make you forget about the bizarre politics of this fictional America.
- One last 'criticism' is that I think Civil War would've worked better as TV show than a film, thanks to some odd pacing in the middle.
- To fill in the journey from NYC to DC, there are multiple separate sequences/experiences for the characters and a couple really stood out.
- Rather than feeling like they were intended as part of the movie, they felt more like the writer-director, Alex Garland, came up with these sequences first and refused to cut them even though how each sequence begins feels a little forced compared to some of the others.
- That might not be the case, but it was just what it felt like to me as the sequences concerned (which I won't spoil) didn't quite mesh as well as the others and could've done with more time to create the connective tissue to make them feel a natural fit for the greater story being told.
- I will say that those sequences are still very interesting to watch, because the cast are so good at reacting believably to what they encounter, that any concerns will be forgotten about until well after the film finishes.
- And the performances from the central quartet really are the key to making Civil War work for me, as I don't think I would've enjoyed myself quite as much if they hadn't been so good at their jobs.
- Civil War was a really, really good experience while watching it; it's only thinking about it afterwards that I realised how much in it doesn't really work, although it wouldn't put me off watching it again. [7/10]
GAMES
p - Not much gaming over the last week in all honesty, with only a little bit of Mass Effect 3 played so there's not really much more to say here other than...
p - I have a long weekend coming up and I swear on my life that I will get started, if not complete Little Misfortune to write about in due course.
TV
- Much like with the gaming, very little TV watched; at least, very little new TV watched as I've been killing the bits of free time I do have re-watching some of The Grand Tour specials and playthroughs of 1000xRESIST on YouTube.
- I do only have a few episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch remaining though, and will be writing about the show as a whole in a couple of weeks' time.
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