‘Civil War’ Trailer: Armed Conflicts Rips The Country Apart In Alex Garland’s New Thriller

It’s tough to deny that tensions are elevated in this country right now. The political divisions are more stark than they’ve ever been, and the possibility of armed conflict is at a high. Seems like the wrong time, or perhaps the best time (?) to put out a movie called Civil War that fictionalizes what it would look like if such an armed conflict that tore the nation apart would look like.

Leave it to writer/director Alex Garland to push those political hot buttons with Civil War. While much of the plot has been kept under wraps, the story appears to follow a group of journalists navigating the war zone as they try to reach the nation’s capital. Garland’s synopsis calls it “an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride through a near-future fractured America balanced on the razor’s edge.”

The film stars Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, Jesse Plemons and Jonica T. Gibb.

A24 will release Civil War into theaters and IMAX on April 12th. I’m curious to see how people react to this one. To me it looks amazing, and like an extension of Kevin Smith’s 2010 film Red State. But I also know that people are exhausted by the internal strife and may not want to pay money to watch it taken to such a horrific extent. We shall see. I’ll definitely be there though.

Travis Hopson
Travis Hopson has been reviewing movies before he even knew there was such a thing. Having grown up on a combination of bad '80s movies, pro wrestling, comic books, and hip-hop, Travis is uniquely positioned to geek out on just about everything under the sun. A vampire who walks during the day and refuses to sleep, Travis is the co-creator and lead writer for Punch Drunk Critics. He is also a contributor to Good Morning Washington, WBAL Morning News, and WETA Around Town. In the five minutes a day he's not working, Travis is also a voice actor, podcaster, and Twitch gamer. Travis is a voting member of the Critics Choice Association (CCA), Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and Late Night programmer for the Lakefront Film Festival.