Civil War - Sound And Fury, Signifying Nothing

As a Texan who was born and raised in the Lone Star state, the idea of Texas teaming up with California for any reason is absolutely hilarious. Especially in this day and age.

Although I too was shocked and laughed a bit at your observation, I’ll say this for Kirsten Dunst: Good for her for staying away from plastic surgery and just aging like a normal person. There are people who aren’t even in Hollywood that can’t do that, so I find that pretty admirable.

Like Kirsten Dunst’s courage in resisting Hollywood plastic surgery pressure. She said “I'm not gonna screw up my face and look like a freak. I'd rather get old and do good roles." 👍🏼

I liked it, personally. I saw it in Imax, and it felt like I was there. I don't think the point was to tell a story on how it realistically could happen, but rather what an actual civil war would look like after a while. Nobody is the good guys, nobody really knows who they're fighting and what they're fighting for anymore. Everybody loses. The people who dislike it are generally quite partisan one way or the other and seem to be annoyed that it doesn't swing overtly left or right.

The most unrealistic part about this is the fact that the president isn't 102 years old but instead closer to an actual average American.

A modern Civil War movie, released in an election year. Couldn’t get more opportune timing than that.

Usually I agree with you, but I think this film is smarter than you give it credit for. We saw the war through the eyes through apolitical journalists—therefore we saw horror, not politics. Obviously I think you’ve got some good points.

Unfortunately, I'm not with Critical Drinker on this one. Sometimes a movie is akin to a canvas of painting, that does not need any additional story. Civil war in the USA is the end of the world as we know it. Simple as that. I recall watching Italian film called Gomorra, that has a neutral point of view as well, and it conveyed the ideas without any additional narration perfectly.

And the crowd goes mild.

The most unrealistic thing about Civil War is thinking any state would want to rebel against a Ron Swanson presidency.

According to the director, he wanted to have Texas and California team up as he believes in an actual situation where a dictator took control of the white house, the two sides would abandon their differences to tackle the greater threat. That may be true, but it needed fleshing out more. We needed more exposition. I will say that for the small amount of character arc there is, it is well done. I thought Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny had great chemistry together.

Its strong side is defined by its avoidance of taking sides in the clown theater. It shows the reality of war, which is pure and unabated horror, dehumanizing agony, horrible chaos, permanent distrust, backyard torture, leftover body parts, men running into flying metal, felt in every bone and perhaps not being portrayed in such a masterful, terrifying manner since Joseph Vilsmaier's "Stalingrad". It is also quite meta in that it shows journalists trying to show the horrors of war to their audience while it uses this plot to show its audience the horrors of war. And how desensitized, partisan or Marvel-brainwashed does one have to be to not get that? You're supposed to be invested in - beings! "Sound and Fury, signifying the fury of this signification of nothingness" - there, I fixed your quote from Shakespeare for you.

Ron Swanson finally made it. He took down the government from the inside. Absolute mad lad.

Theory: The president was, in fact, Ron Swanson. He hated the government so much he continued to climb the ladder until he could be the one to run it into the ground.

I think the director purposely didn't give information about why the sides were fighting, because that was the point. A civil war is a defeat for everyone. I agree with the drinker about the characters, they needed more depth and they certainly could have added 10-15 minutes to the runtime to achieve that.

Pretty impressive film, combat wise. It's been a minute since I've seen such close violence, often accompanied by no music. Gunfights actually sound accurate and it doesn't shy away from showing the obvious tragedy of war and needless killing.

As a Torontonian, everyone died laughing in my theatre when Dunst offered $300 CAD and the guy immediately agreed to give them gas.

To Kirsten's credit, Drinker, she's recently said that she doesn't want (or plan) to have a plastic surgery and prefers to age naturally. This is somewhat refreshing actually when most actors (both men & women) have been abusing the cosmetic procedures to the point that they can't even mimic properly when playing their characters, which imho affects their performance. Also, it could've been a makeup contributing to her weary look, in line with her character.

The movie was about journalism and not about a civil war

The Critical Drinker missed the mark on this one. Big time. Civil War is a profoundly deep look at media. How journalists have failed to both remain unbiased and retain their humanity. The movie also explicitly says in the first 15 minutes that the western forces will turn on each other as soon as they win. The only side that exists for ANY of the warring factions is destroying what's left of the Republic. But that's not the point of the movie. There's a camera seen in nearly every single second of the movie. The movie also blatantly says, "Oh, I get it now. You're a [pejorative term for a low IQ person]." When a journalist tries to figure out why some people are fighting.