Alex Garland is one of those writers/directors whose names will make me automatically interested in a project, like Nolan: even his movies I didn't particularly like (and I liked most of them) were interesting enough to deserve a viewing - although admittedly I've so far avoided the reportedly stomach-churning Men.
Some viewers have accused Garland of trickery with his new dystopian/sci-fi flick, because this movie isn't really about a second American Civil War: it focuses on four journalists travelling to Washington during that war and we never really go beyond their point of view or learn more about the origin of the conflict or its various phases, other than the bitter last act.
While this is a legitimate criticism - and the clever marketing was certainly deceptive, because they knew that a movie about brave reporters simply would not have gained that kind of attention - I believe it was a smart choice.
To tell the story of a possibile second Civil War in detail you would need a miniseries, a choral cast of characters and a much bigger budget than Garland had: so the writer-director follows his four protagonists and shows scary, tantalizing glimpses of the bigger picture, a bit like Spielberg's War of the Worlds (which, mawky sentimentality aside, was a great piece of film-making).
The cast is excellent, led by Dunst in what is probably the best performance of her career as a fundamentally decent but dead-eyed and exhausted reporter who has seen too many horrors (also, on a shallow note, bless Dunst for not ruining her lovely face with plastic surgery unlike many of her colleagues - better some wrinkles than looking like a plastic mask).
Moura, Spaeny and McKinley Henderson are also fine, although the great Nick Offerman's screentime as the President is disappointingly tiny.
The standout is probably Jesse Plemons (Dunst's real-life husband) in a small but chilling role as one of the many dangerous encounters faced by the protagonists during their journey.
7/10.
Some viewers have accused Garland of trickery with his new dystopian/sci-fi flick, because this movie isn't really about a second American Civil War: it focuses on four journalists travelling to Washington during that war and we never really go beyond their point of view or learn more about the origin of the conflict or its various phases, other than the bitter last act.
While this is a legitimate criticism - and the clever marketing was certainly deceptive, because they knew that a movie about brave reporters simply would not have gained that kind of attention - I believe it was a smart choice.
To tell the story of a possibile second Civil War in detail you would need a miniseries, a choral cast of characters and a much bigger budget than Garland had: so the writer-director follows his four protagonists and shows scary, tantalizing glimpses of the bigger picture, a bit like Spielberg's War of the Worlds (which, mawky sentimentality aside, was a great piece of film-making).
The cast is excellent, led by Dunst in what is probably the best performance of her career as a fundamentally decent but dead-eyed and exhausted reporter who has seen too many horrors (also, on a shallow note, bless Dunst for not ruining her lovely face with plastic surgery unlike many of her colleagues - better some wrinkles than looking like a plastic mask).
Moura, Spaeny and McKinley Henderson are also fine, although the great Nick Offerman's screentime as the President is disappointingly tiny.
The standout is probably Jesse Plemons (Dunst's real-life husband) in a small but chilling role as one of the many dangerous encounters faced by the protagonists during their journey.
7/10.