"Civil War" review — A ferocious imagining of a United States plunged into war
“What kind of American are you?” Every time she’s survived a war zone with her photographs in hand, journalist Lee Smith thought she was sending a warning home. Lee’s been through a lot, as we get to know through some early traumatic flashback sequences. She’s experienced conflict the world over, seen people die in front of her, and experienced the most horrific parts of humanity armed with only her camera. But now, that conflict has come home. While the causes behind the war are unknown to the viewer, the United States of America has dissolved into a four-faction civil war. There’s fighting in major cities, the highways are empty, mass starvation ravages the country, the economy is in freefall, and the President is barely holding his grip on power in Washington. All of those warnings Lee spent her career sending seem to be rather useless right now. Civil War is the latest film from English screenwriter and director Alex Garland, the filmmaker behind Ex Machina (2015), Annihilation (
