Civil War

I unfortunately arrived at the theater a couple minutes after the film began, and missed the opening speech made by Nick Offerman, which I'm guessing was a big exposition dump, since, during the entirety of the movie, I wasn't sure who caused the civil war, who either side was, and what exactly they were fighting for. However, it didn't really impact my enjoyment of the movie. Road trip adventure movies are one of my favorite subgenres of film and storytelling. I love good stories where characters take a trip to get something or do something, but there's a long bit of traveling in the middle, where the characters encounter odd characters and "side quest" interactions along the way that develop the characters, but don't necessarily need to have much to do with the narrative thrust and overall goal of the movie. Bill and Ted, Little Miss Sunshine, Harold and Kumar, and even The Green Knight fit into this category. So does Civil War, and I loved it for that among other things. Alex Garland always manages to fit my favorite kind of vibes into all of his movies, a sense of dread (or "dredd" ;) iykyk ) that's also filtered through a lens of comedic irreverence (except for Annihilation, that has none of that, just straight nightmare fuel). I was expecting the movie to take a firm stance on which side of the political compass is the correct side, but it leaves most of the politics surprisingly ambiguous, which works for the story, since the movie's theme isn't about politics, really, and it consequently stays away from being preachy at all because of this. However, I'm glad that they did at least take the stance that guns are bad, killing people is bad, and racism is bad, as well as how crackpot conservative racists with guns are bad. The ending is great, the character arcs for both main characters are superb, as they're both unconventional and sort of anti-arcs, and the two of them essentially flip perspectives by the end. The action was scary and great to watch in a theater, and the performances from everyone were incredible. Every gunshot made me anxious, which worked really well for the experience. I have nothing else to say but to vote for Joe Biden in the presidential election this year. Civil War was awesome, but wouldn't be awesome if it actually happened. Would watch again.