Civil War

Year 17, Day 19 - 1/19/25 - Movie #4,919

BEFORE: Karl Glusman carries over from "Reptile". And I'm back on track now, because this is where Jesse Plemons was supposed to carry over from "Killers of the Flower Moon", only I had to pull that film from the chain because no footage of Robert De Niro was used in "Joker: Folie à Deux". But I have to believe that the chain knows what it's doing, it has a mind of its own, you see, which is perhaps a partial reflection of my own mind. That hiccup pushed today's film one day closer to the Inauguration Day for our 47th President, who happens to be the same guy as our 45th President. Could we, and work with me here, possibly get some insight into our own dystopian future by watching this movie?  Fore-warned is fore-armed, right?  OK, so raise the barricades and batten down the hatches, impose a media blackout, because I'm going in...

No, for real, we're expecting snow here in NYC so we're going to need those barricades, I'm about ready to hunker down for a few days and not go anywhere, except on emergency grocery runs. I have taken steps to make sure I don't have another interruption of service caused by archive footage not being there when I need it, three films from now I'm really counting on a certain actor appearing in mid-credits archive footage, and so I took a peek at those credits, and yes, Thank God, yes, he's there. Now, the IMDB does not consider archive footage during closing credits as an official "appearance" (I learned that after "Deadpool & Wolverine"), but for my purposes, it should serve just fine. I think I may have to one day take over IMDB just like Elon Musk did with Twitter, just to get things listed the way I want them to be.  

THE PLOT: In a dystopian future, four journalists travel across the U.S. during a nation-wide conflict. While trying to survive, they aim to reach the White House to interview the president before he is overthrown. 

AFTER: Perhaps programming five dystopian future films in one month is a bit too much - I'm feeling burned out already, and I've only watched three of them. But we're at something of a unique moment in history right now, which is kind of like dancing on the edge of a cliff, and right now we just don't know which way this crazy thing called America is going to go. Trump said he would be like a "dictator on Day One", which is, umm, tomorrow so if that's the case, well, democracy had a good run, I guess. See you on the other side, I wish we could afford that four-year cruise around the world that gets you back just in time to vote in 2028 but it's just a BIT outside our price range. I guess I've got no choice but to join the resistance and become a freedom-fighter, can I do that remotely, without leaving home?  If you're reading these words it means they haven't shut me down yet, I'll continue broadcasting from the underground as long as I can. When I'm silenced, you'll know that the establishment has won but until then, STAY OFF the internet!  They're tracking you and they can hear everything we say, until now they've only used that power to send you Facebook ads based on your conversations, but very soon, those recorded conversations will be used to separate out the undesirables and take them away to internment camps.  

To be fair, they never name the President here, he's not Drumpf or Schmump or anything other than an allegory or amalgam, but he is played by Nick Offerman. I think that's great casting, like normally I'd approve of Nick Offerman as President, he seems like a solid guy, very funny, family man, a carpenter, outdoorsman, somebody you'd want to have a beer with who probably also built the table that you would rest that beer on. But he also plays pompous very well, and so he's a great choice for the unnamed President here who is somehow serving his third term, and dealing with the fact that California and Texas seceded from the Union and formed the Western Republic, and now they're rallying their forces for a coup, about to make the final push toward Washington DC, where the President is holed up in the White House, or maybe the barricaded Lincoln Memorial.  All of the reporters left in the free press (which isn't many) now need to make their way to the capitol to try to capture the photo of the century. 

Guys, this could happen. You-know-who does not surrender power easily, he wouldn't admit his loss in 2020, he still won't, and he wouldn't rest until he got back in power.  Now the gloves are off, and, OK, maybe I'm wrong, maybe he'll pardon himself on Day One for any and all crimes, and then just play golf and eat Big Macs for another four years. Right now that would be the BEST-case scenario, and OK, fine, bring on the Bird Flu pandemic (or COVID-24 or monkeypox, whichever) because I could use another round of unemployment checks, if I'm being honest. There are ALREADY people saying that Trump could qualify for a third term because he's both the 45th AND 47th President, and even though he's the same guy, he's entitled to two terms as Number 47. That's not how it works, an individual can only serve two terms, or ten years max (if they were a VP that ascended by the death of a President) but his supporters are already looking for that loophole. I present the case of Michael Bloomberg, who as mayor of NYC ran on a platform that established a two-term limit for mayors, including himself, and then all he did was change his affiliation from Republican to Independent to become eligible for a third term, which he GOT.  It's funny how the people who make the rules sometimes also feel those rules do not apply to themselves.  Bloomberg's excuse was that there was a financial crisis and only he could solve it, and Trump's famous for saying something similar - "I, alone can fix it." so it's not hard to see that there could be a justification in the future that bends those rules over backwards to produce the desired result.  

In this film, we really don't know what came first - the President's third term or the succession of the Western states. But we can see how one maybe led to the other, the President could have easily said that there's a war on, so a change in leadership would be very, very bad - George W. Bush pulled that one, and HE started the war!  OK, Cheney did, but you know what I mean.  If there were other issues that caused the Texas-California alliance, the film annoyingly doesn't mention what they are, but the idea of California secession has been around for a while, since their economy is actually larger than many countries in the world, California could probably make a go of things, without having to kick up to the Federal government. Right now Los Angelenos are all pointing out what percentage of their incomes they're paying in taxes only to not get the services they need while their houses are burning down. SO yeah, this could happen, I'm totally on board.  

But we're not here to talk about real-world politics today, because the film is really just a road-trip through the Forbidden Zone, much like "How It Ends" last year, only that trip was across the U.S. in another direction, for different reasons. The framework's the same, a few people with divergent backgrounds have to team up to drive across hostile territory while avoiding soldiers, well-armed local rebels and the overall collapse of society to reach another city on a deadline. Maybe not all of them are going to make it, but gosh darn it, they've got to try.  This time, we've got three veteran journalists and one newbie, who says she's 23 but she looks like she's 13. For the record, the actress was 25, so yeah, I'm wrong here but she still looks very young to me. Maybe everyone under 30 just looks like a teenager to my old-ass eyes. But her whole deal is that she's inexperienced and hasn't seen yet JUST how cruel people can be to each other, and we're all going to see that through her eyes.  

You'd be surprised (or, maybe not) what atrocities regular people are willing to commit because somebody else appears to not uphold the same belief system, and though here that's not based on race or religion or sexual orientation, it's still not a far leap to imagine people setting each other on fire or blowing each other up. We know that it happens, just look at the news. And we know there are paramilitary groups out there who are just as well armed as our armed forces, maybe even better, they just fly under the radar. I hope that I'm wrong about this, really, but it's possible this film director, Alex Garland, knows what he's talking about. He also wrote "28 Days Later", "Never Let Me Go" and "Sunshine", then directed "Ex Machina" and "Annihilation", so he's spent some serious time thinking about the future, if not time-traveling there. 

That being said, my wife woke up last night after a bad dream and came downstairs, she watched the first 10 minutes of "Civil War" and that was enough for her. The premise wasn't enough for her to stick with it, but I'm glad she got to see a bit of President Offerman NotTrump. And this morning (OK, afternoon) when I asked her if she wanted to know what happened, there was really no need. She took a guess as to how the movie was going to play out, then she nailed it in one - and she doesn't watch 300 movies a year like I do - so that's my evidence that this plot might be a little predictable. It sets up the ending in the very beginning, then it does what it said it was going to do, and like those reporters, we just HAVE to see it to believe it, but that doesn't mean we don't know it's coming. It's kind of like Seal Team Six going after Bin Laden, it can really only end one way. She also correctly guessed what would happen on that road trip, and who would end up taking THE picture on the (for some reason) antiquated film-based cameras that people are still using in the future. Look, I don't know if you heard, but photography is all digital now, there's simply no need to carry around developer and film stock. (Tell me you're a 55-year-old movie director without telling me...)

In those days after the election last November, as I was searching for any glimmer of hope, really, I would have taken anything at all, I got myself to a place where I thought, "Maybe, just maybe, this outcome averts a Civil War, that seemed to be where we were headed, and half the country is disappointed now and the other half got what they wanted, but will be disappointed later."  Sure, it's not much, but it kept me going for a little while. The future is a tricky thing - always in motion, the future is. We start finding out tomorrow about the impending apocalypse, just please, keep your minds clear because whatever you think about, that's the form that the Destructor is going to take, we learned that from "Ghostbusters". I made it through eight years of Reagan, I made it through eight years of Bush/Cheney, and god willing, I'll make it through another four years of Trump. But if he somehow gets a third term, I swear it, I'm joining the Resistance. OK, good talk, let's circle back to this in four years time and see where we are. 

Also starring Kirsten Dunst (last seen in "The Bling Ring"), Wagner Moura (last heard in "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish"), Nick Offerman (last seen in "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"), Jefferson White, Nelson Lee (last seen in "Mulan" (2020)), Evan Lai, Cailee Spaeny (last seen in "How It Ends" (2021)), Stephen McKinley Henderson (last seen in "Beau Is Afraid"), Vince Pisani (last seen in "Jungle Cruise"), Greg Hill (last seen in "Operation Finale"), Edmund Donovan, Tim James, James Yaegashi (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Melissa Saint-Amand (last seen in "The Tomorrow War"), Jared Shaw (ditto), Jin Ha, Sonoya Mizuno (last seen in "Crazy Rich Asians"), Jojo T. Gibbs, Justin Garza, Brian Philpot, Tywaun Tornes, Juani Feliz (last seen in "The Purge: Election Year"), Justin James Boykin (last seen in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"), Jess Matney, Simeon Freeman, Alexa Mansour, Martha B. Knighton (last seen in "The Do-Over"), with a cameo from Jesse Plemons (last seen in "The Homesman"). 

RATING: 5 out of 10 bullet-ridden Christmas decorations (seriously, WTF?)