America is on fire both literally and metaphorically in the new trailer forAlex Garland’s bleak dystopian thrillerCivil War. The director’s latest collaboration with A24 following 2022’sMenenvisions the United States torn apart by war as the country clashes with the separatist Western Forces led by Texas and California.Kirsten Dunststars as a journalist documenting the carnage across the nation with her team while trying to stay alive and out of reach of the violent political extremists and the tyrannical government led by a corrupt president played byEmmy winnerNick Offerman. The new footage takes a tour from sea to shining sea as battles rage, fires burn, and only death and destruction are left behind.
Offerman’s President of the United States opens up with a call to not just the California and Texas separatists, but togroups in Florida, to depose their governmentsto be welcomed back under his rule. As he speaks,the massive scale of Garland’s pic takes shapewith militias filling the streets and countryside of the rebel states and normal neighborhoods becoming warzones. A group of soldiers coldly tell Dunst’s character and her team that they don’t care what side anyone is on or what kind of American they are — it’s kill or be killed in the land of the free. The whistled tune of “America the Beautiful” then somberly plays as a montage runs through empty city streets, survivor camps, militia convoys, and scattered vehicles, showing the consequences of such a conflict in the U.S. It ends with troops, tanks, and helicoptersstreaming into Washington D.C.and laying waste to everything, including the iconic Lincoln Memorial, all as screams of terror ring out,showing nothing is safe from the war.
Civil Warhas all the hallmarks of Garland’s dystopian style as shown inAnnihilationor28 Days Later, but it’s especially timely consideringthe upcoming presidential electionand the general uptick in political polarization over the past several years. The horrors of this world will be experienced through the eyes of Dunst and her team, which also featuresWagner Moura,Stephen McKinley Henderson, and recentPriscillastarCailee Spaeny. It promises to be a bleak and tense watch as the group tries to make it to the White House while documenting every ruined home and landmark along the way. In a recent interview withEmpire Magazine, Garland pegged the journalists as the heart and soul of the film as it also infers on the role of media members as a check on government power andhow they often end up in the crosshairs for simply doing their jobs:
“Journalists are vilified, often, by all sorts of different people. By politicians, by the public. It’s not necessarily a side of a political spectrum. And the truth is that if you want a government with checks and balances, you need journalists. In the inferences within the film, one of them is an inference about journalists, and about how important they are.”
‘Civil War’ Will Be a Shorter Experience Than Originally Reported
Despite the sweeping nature of Garland’s latest feature,the runtime will be surprisingly short. Initially, reports had it listed as over three hours in length, though A24 recently cleared up the confusion by announcing it would be under two hours with a 109-minute runtime. The scale ofCivil Waris still unprecedented for the independent banner, though, with a record-high $75 million budget for an A24 film and a star-studded supporting cast includingJesse Plemons,Karl Glusman,Sonoya Mizuno, andJonica T. Gibbs. Both the new trailer andthe previous teasershowcase the grand setpieces viewers can expect as Garland flexes that extra financial firepower to show every detail of the fall of an empire.
Civil Warpremieres in theaters on April 12,a tad earlier than its original April 26 date. Check out the new trailer below.
In a near-future United States on the verge of civil war, a group of war journalists faces the challenge of surviving and reporting the truth. Navigating dangerous territories and conflicting agendas, they strive to reveal the complex realities of a nation divided while questioning their roles in the unfolding conflict.
