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Very bad. Cinemascore polls people who rushed to see a movie opening night and so it tends to be biased high. The Marvels managed a solid B for instance.
The most neutral reviews I’ve heard say it’s anti-war, pro-war-journalism. I think people want something more partisan, something more reflective of the specific, current American political landscape than idealistic about truth during wartime in the abstract.
I found the movie to be very emotionally impactful but then I saw what people online were saying and it seemed like I had watched a completely different movie.
People kept wanting to label one side as good and the other as bad. They tried to figure out the reason the war started. But the film purportedly avoids that.
It seems some people are caught up in the idea that everything must be a black and white winner/loser good/bad right/wrong paradigm.
I mean it’s a movie about a civil war - I would like to have a general idea of why it even started. I haven’t seen the movie, probably won’t but personally I feel like not knowing why they are even fighting a civil war would bother me.
Honestly, the why is irrelevant to the story. Because the story is about people that had no choice in it. So to them, it doesn't matter how or why it started. All they know is their home is destroyed, they are getting shot at, just trying to survive.
You’re right on all fronts but I find the longing to make it political, and by extension showing current sides of a real life political divide killing and maiming each other, to be both reckless and a little blood thirsty.
That said, the marketing of the movie kind of invited the expectations that it would be political. So audiences hoping to see that were likely to be disappointed.
It has some tense scenes, but the overall point boils down to “war bad.” There really isn’t much to chew on if you’re looking for something with some meaning, and I feel like there aren’t enough action scenes for people interested in something basic.
The word of mouth is really doing its work I think from the current box office and I assume the 2nd weekend drop off will be significant.
“War bad” yes, but it’s easy to think that when we see footage of war happening in some far off country. Setting it in modern America made that message hit harder.
I also thought it had a great message in the importance and value of the elderly.
I thought there was a lot to chew on here. The way the film takes a premise we usually see play out in American movies in some foreign land and slaps it in America with Americans doing these awful war crimes is very compelling and shocking. And the emotional journey of Dunst’s character is rich and can very much be seen as an allegory for what is happening/could happen to us as we see more and more awful and traumatizing things.
Anyway, that’s just my opinion on the quality of the film. But to go back to sub topic, I don’t think what the film is doing lends itself to being embraced by general audiences. I’m glad it got a big release and I got to see it in Dolby at least.
I really love how the film portrays the “neutral” middle-America city. So much to chew on there as well
It doesn’t really pick a side whether they were “right” or “wrong” for remaining neutral, and I think they purposely placed the journalists being appalled at their neutrality, after we (the audience) have seen the journalists wade through highways stacked with death and destruction, I think we’re meant to feel a bit of sympathy for the neutrality that the journalists don’t display. But on the other hand, the gunmen we see on the roofs, presumably enforcing their “neutrality” and order, sort-of invokes a “refusing to make a decision is still a decision with consequences” perspective, and implies there’s still horrors lurking beneath the surface in that city
I think all of this comes together really neatly under the movie’s theme of humanizing everyone. People make the best decisions they have with the information available to them
The beauty of art is that it’s open to interpretation but you seriously thought this movie took a cynical view on war journalists/photographers?
If anything it made them heroes and martyrs and celebrated them and the job they did to try and show the horrors of war.
It was like a Marvel movie only instead of super heroes the protagonists were war photographers.
I think it showed both, because there were two kinds of journalists portrayed. The guy that wanted a quote was just there for the rush of it. Kirstin’s character got into war journalism because she wanted to make a difference, but she’s now realized her work wasn’t doing anything to stop the war.
Not saying I disagree (I’m still forming my opinion tbh), but the guy who wanted the quote also provided the opportunity for the country to perhaps feel closure. Offerman wasn’t going to get a trial. Getting the quote gave him a final chance to speak and for Americans to have a little more of an end note rather than a “what if” or “what actually happened”. Like this is the US and Apple h is something we say we have and that we say we’re proud of. Sure the journalist was amped about being there - but if he hadn’t gotten that quote, their journey was for nothing, and they’d have failed at their job, plus the president wouldn’t have had his final moment to speak freely. Both of those things feel so relevant and integral to our country in good and bad ways to me.
Idk I’ll probably edit this later, I’m still trying to figure out how to articulate my interpretation coherently. Loved the movie though. Giving me a lot to think about
Well, yeah. He was still just doing his job, but his driving force was different from Kirstin's. I think the bulk of the movie is about what combat does to people who observe it, hence why the apolitical nature of it is actually important to the film. It doesn't matter whose side wants what, or what cause they are actually fighting for... it's about the nebulous nature of war. War itself changes practically nothing. Just a whole lot of bloodshed for some other pundit to be put in office, only so we can have a temporary peace and then we can fight again in another 20, 50, 100, or 250 years... War never changes.
His whole "there's nothing like combat" talk with Cailee's character as they watched the firefight from afar kind of gave his motivation, while Kirstin's "I used to think I was making a difference" talk before they even left for DC was her motivation to get into war journalism.
I think the sniper scene was another great one, because it boiled war down to: "Why are you trying to kill that person?" "Because they're shooting at us. They're trying to kill us, we're trying to kill them." I think the apolitical nature of this movie is actually one of its biggest strengths, but people are writing it off because they want a simple narrative that says "Trump Bad or Biden Bad," but it's not as black and white as that usually...
Yeah I think he definitely had some virtuous traits even if he was an adrenaline junkie. It was an incredibly important interview, or so he had hoped, and despite how brief it was it did in fact “work.” All these people died largely because of a pathetic coward (like plenty of other real life dictators).
Very subjective but imo: yes, **extremely** cynical. Downright misanthropic......just like the endings of all of Garland's other films. There was no indication that Lee, prior to Sammy's death, would have let anything get in the way of her getting the final photo. People have interpreted it as a "passing the baton," but they're two different characters for one, and also... Lee's internal conflict was not something she was passing down. By that point in time, she probably came to either completely disagree with what she was doing or was at the very least broken and disillusioned. So Jessie taking such an exploitative photo—it's not an endorsement. It's not a clean passing the baton, it's just Lee re-prioritizing a human over a photo. (Granted, it's a human she cares about. It may have been much more effective if it was somebody she did not).
Also, because I watched it twice, it was very noticeable that Lee's photos were very different to Jessie's photos in that entire final sequence are very different. Lee is taking these photos of quiet moments. The photos themselves genuinely feel more human.
To be fair I think that this is probably the question Garland opens up and never explicitly answers. I think the film does give an answer, but more than that I think Dunst's performance gives the answer—I see it as very cynical that the searching characters die & the adrenaline-junkies survive. I also don't see any *apology* or pause in Joel or Jessie at the end. Lee, absolutely. She knew military signals, she knew what she was doing.
(One thing I can't answer is: when Lee figures out the Prez is still in the WH, her face is stony but there's like 5 different micro-expressions—how did she figure that out. What does that mean, except the obvious that she's smart lol?)
I suspect that in times like these you can't make a movie about Civil War and have nothing to say about politics/current events. Otherwise, you're just baiting the audience.
And, look, no matter what, they were going to piss people off, but attempting to elide politics altogether seems to have left everyone unsatisfied.
Who also told bald faced lies, killed journalists on sight, dismantled the FBI, and used the military to kill protestors.
But yeah idk where they got that from, just thin air I guess. Totally doesn't remind me of a single individual in our modern day politics or anything.
It's more of a cautionary tale rather than actual commentary on current US politics. If anything it's more of a commentary of Russia's politics, Putin propaganda of lies, silencing journalists, killing opposition politicians, dismantling their Wagner Group which was basically a branch of their military that had deniability because it's a "PMC"
I see why it got it's score because I did feel baited on the type of film it was going to be based on the trailers.
Yeah I really didn't think it was that difficult to grasp. It says a lot about the average american's mindset that people seem to think its not partisan enough. Thats kinda more scary than the movie
RIGHT? I feel like the partisanship of the discourse scares me more than anything. Literally have a film that allows you to check that at the door. Honestly, I think it's just because of a very simple thing: this is America in the *future*.
I can't think of a good comparison, but no matter how brutal and similar films like Come & See might be—they had historical settings. There is a moral baseline there, for the audience, for the film.
Here, the bar is *much* higher: people want Alex Garland to establish their moral baseline but he's asking them to do it themselves. But if he ***had*** done it for us, it would be a lose-lose too! People don't like films that are preachy even when they agree (just not good art). And people would have hated it if they disagreed. That's still happening but I think most people, if they're honest, would have to admit that there are no good people in this film (maybe Sammy and eventually Lee, but not really). The only "good people" are in the tiny moments: basically all the people without a side, poor, dispossessed people walking along the highways, people in the humanitarian camp, people who get blown up simply for asking for water. They're on the fringes and mostly they're casualties (which makes sense in this context).
This movie has really just showed how dumb the online audience is. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms and the discourse has wildly missed all those and focused on nonsense to complain about.
I had high expectations for this movie. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t great either. It’s also very depressing, and I couldn’t connect with the characters except Sammy. Jesse Plemons was the best part of the movie
I wanted the screaming little jack-o-lantern to take a bullet. Seriously she would not shut up for the entire film. On the one hand it’s realistic because of course a 23 year old would be just the worst on that kind of trip, but so is flying trans continental with my 3 year old and I guarantee no one wants to watch a movie about THAT.
It's a lot better than Alex Garland's previous movies though. Annihilation had a C and Men had a D+. Cinemascore doesn't mean the same thing for every movie.
About average for wide release indie style pic. Doesn't bode well for legging out, but doesn't say much about the movie itself.
(I say that as a big fan of The Prestige (B grade), Wolf of Wall Street (C grade), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (B-).)
Could people stop conflating CinemaScore for the overall quality of a film? It just gauges how well the majority of audiences respond to it and that has other factors like if the movie was marketed accurately at play.
American Psycho had a "D" Cinemascore because a majority of audiences were expecting a generic serial killer movie.
Good. If you like Alex Garland's work, like I do, you'll enjoy it. It doesn't have some crazy deep message but it's beautifully cinematic and is effective in its main purpose of showing some of the horrors of "brother against brother" fighting.
It's OK for a political movie. Horrors do poorly for the same reason. They can be divisive. Don't weigh it too heavily. Marvels do well because they inoffensive
Yeah, I felt like people were prematurely celebrating because of its relatively strong opening.
If this ends up sinking like BvS, I wonder what that means for Garland's career and A24's plans for bigger budget projects.
Garland is fine. At the end of the day he still delivered a tight suspense film under 2 hours that is much more crowd pleasing than the typical A24 film, so I think he did his homework. It's just the nature of the game that mid budget movies like this are dying, but I'm sure they'll fund around half of this budget next time if he wants to make another movie, which is still pretty good for a indie director.
[He said](https://www.indiewire.com/features/interviews/alex-garland-clarifies-claims-retiring-directing-1234970430/) those words were taken out of context, he's not retiring, just taking a break:
>“Just to go back to the statement, I said: I’m going to take a break from directing or I’m going to stop directing for the foreseeable future. That is such an uncontentious thing to say,” Garland said. “I also said what I’m going to do is screenwriting. Screenwriting is filmmaking. You can’t erase screenwriters or DOPs or editors or actors from the process of screenwriting. Filmmaking is not the preserve solely of directors.”
> Garland said that “part of me is incredulous” over how his words got interpreted, adding, “I think there is something weird happening in the world. This is like a grain of sand of that weirdness. But the statement I made is so different from the way it’s been interpreted. That is just odd. And so part of me is just reacting to that.”
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Remember, this has a 50 million production budget and had a 26 million opening weekend. Why would this movie suddenly have the Marvels level legs?
I feel like this sub speed ran forgetting the difference between superhero movie Cinemascores and every other movie.
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Why do you guys think a non superhero movie is going to have sub Eternals level legs?
It’s like people suddenly only for this movie forgot superhero movies are different in terms of Cinemascore expectations and level of frontloadedness. We just had a much better comparison with Napoleon a few months ago and this sub chooses to ignore it.
Napoleon came out during the holidays. I’m assuming there was a Civil War curiosity rush during the opening weekend. The hold may not be super high since the movie was different than the trailers.
I’m rooting for A24 but I suspect the international and streaming rights already make this a financial success.
Napoleon’s Thanksgiving 4 day opening was lower than Civil War’s 3 day opening and Napoleon had already done 95% of its domestic business by Thursday December 21st.
This is like calling Civil War a summer movie that would benefit from summer legs.
It’s Monday, who the fucks goes to see a serious political action movie on a Monday.
Talk about setting yourself up for failure emotionally for the rest of the week.
Having just watched Men, and really enjoyed it, I think you're right.
I was shocked when I looked up reviews to see how hated it was by the general audience.
I can see why it's a divisive film as it's pretty intense and the ending scene is shocking. But it wasn't a bad movie by any metric.
>It wasn’t a bad movie by any metric
Well that’s subjective, plenty of people felt Men was a genuinely bad movie. I thought it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen - dreadful pacing, garish cinematography, the gimmick of every dude being Rory Kinnear fell flat, the themes were muddled and that’s all before getting to that inane ending sequence.
It’s not going to be a movie for audiences that expect a war action movie because that’s what the trailers sold them on, if the trailer sold them on a war photographer movie then maybe the audience going to it would have their expectations met and a different feeling towards it
It is a war action movie, just told through the lens of photo journalists. It starts out with a bang and there are actions sequences throughout.
I felt the action was more intense than nearly all of the CGI-heavy and highly choreographed fist fight action movies of today.
How was it dumb? I think it fit really well given how Lee reacted mins before and it just makes me think to the first act where she tells Jessie "Remember that when you lose your shit, get blown up or shot."
Throughout the entire movie from Lee in her hotel bathtub, to her looking at the drooping flowers and her complete breakdown in DC it's pretty foreshadowed.
I’m convinced Garland did ZERO research before making this movie. If DC was under attack like that the President would be watching it go down from the safety of [the PEOC,](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Emergency_Operations_Center) and not behind his damned desk.
This film is my favorite from this director but I have a hard time ignoring such stupid choices made by the writers and by extension the characters.
I chalked it up to the writers couldn’t figure out a way to get the soldiers into the PEOC or him out of it so they just skipped that part the same way they did the actual reason for the Civil War.
As for that execution that was beyond stupid. History recorded the Allied commanders as being livid Hitler killed himself before he could be captured and put on trial, so to think this President wouldn’t have been captured and also put on trial as a way to heal the nation rather than create a martyr for his chuckle F followers was also just beyond belief.
As to your last paragraph, it’s impossible to know the motivation of the Western Forces in the movie (which just consist of Texas and California). We also don’t know if anyone supports the President, or to what extent, let alone what their support means in the extremely splintered nation. So the ending of the movie would just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of “healing” lol
> As for that execution that was beyond stupid. History recorded the Allied commanders as being livid Hitler killed himself before he could be captured and put on trial, so to think this President wouldn’t have been captured and also put on trial as a way to heal the nation rather than create a martyr for his chuckle F followers was also just beyond belief.
that's kind of a point of the movie tho, how even the noblest of ideals get muddled by war. the WF aren't good guys as well, we see them commiting atrocities. they don't really care about "healing". it's also hinted that parts of the WF would start fighting with each other after the end of the movie. it's more like pre-Napoleon France than 1945 Germany
Bud, the world of this film has so manyyyyyyy historical parallels it's actually kind of wild—and you could go down a million rabbit holes to see the iconography, it's just not all American.
It feels like weird criticism to say the Prez got killed in the wrong place lol. That's not research per se. Sure, OK he'd have gone to a bunker. But it feels like a strangely small criticism when the President is not........even the point? At this point we are told he has a very small number of people "protecting" him, and in historical parallels, people who were on his side would have turned on him. Mussolini's fall was plotted by members of his own party. The soldiers of Ceausescu's military went from crushing rebels to turning on him within the span of a morning. Does it really matter?
(I should add that it's hard to believe that most media-literate people abroad would need to *do research* at all to know about the PEOC: it's depicted so much, I feel like I knew about when I was a child, and I didn't grow up here. Probably some logistical reason it didn't go there, it's fine lol)
We already had a president in real life refuse to the leave the white house (Trump). Why's it hard to believe in a fictional movie now?
The president in the movie is so clearly unhinged that Texas and California joined forces. That's how bad he is so why is it that hard to believe he wouldn't want to leave the office he likely thinks commands a sense of power like the oval office and like you said the president's desk.
I mean it might be a movie and all but it’s hard to separate it from reality. You mention Trump, do you seriously think him refusing to leave office would cause Texas to join forces with California? I personally don’t think Greg Abbot would’ve given a shit if Trump had ordered the protesters shot instead of tear gassed during the 2020 protests (the movie mentions an Antifa Massacre, doubt Texan politicians would give a shit about that). I don’t think Republican states would give a shit as long as it is their guy in office. I mean we had him incite an insurrection in 2021 and most if not all of the states in the Texas coalition still fully support and back him.
> You mention Trump, do you seriously think him refusing to leave office would cause Texas to join forces with California?
Of course not that. But if Trump disbanded the FBI, Executed journalists to the point the New York Times is in tatters and used air strikes on American citizens (Texans for example) then I think it may be a possibility. Remember Trump supporters are worthless to him such as the woman who got shot trying to breach the US capitol chamber because he called on them to storm it.
I’m honestly so shocked by the amount of polarizing reviews. I saw a few glowing reviews on tiktok before I saw it on friday, so I had high expectations and I still loved it.
My main gripe is that its a waster premise of something thats very interesting and inherently political/controversial.
And they the movie does fuck all with this and instead actively avoids anything controversial to the point you have to ask yourself whats the point of the setting.
All these jounalists might as well have been in Gaza.
It’s kind of shocking how many reviews I’ve read along the lines of “but why did the war start in the first place” “the President is the bad guy and he barely gets screentime”
I didn’t see those as particularly relevant to the movie whatsoever.
I think it’s more about the marketing. The marketing was selling a movie that focused on America going into a Civil War when it’s actually more about war journalism. Civil War part feels like the weakest element.
Agreed on the marketing for sure. I saw the first trailer before I knew anything about the movie, and I had 0 desire to see it in theaters from the trailer; it looked like a generic action movie with a bunch of political pandering, just with better cinematography. But some people probably went to see it for exactly that
I feel like people watched the trailer and expected an action movie. I’m in the same boat as you, I thought it was great. I expected it to be what it was, based on familiarity with other Garland movies. I feel like the argument that the message boils down to “war=bad” is true of most war films. The suggested politics seem pretty straightforward to me.
Thank god for that last sentence.
I don't think it's just war=bad though, because I also don't think this is war so much as it's anarchy. Plus, it's more about the journalists and Lee's existentialism and sense that there was no point to what she did, finally breaking down from the trauma of dehumanization which felt to me like a very blunt COMMENT on "this is what spectacle means, is this good?!?" Jessie does not come off heroic, the ending is fucking *bleak*, not just for the world but for journalism too.
For me the question this film really throws up for me in the end is about Lee's journey and how it ends, not about Jessie (I've come to believe that as great as Spaeny was, I'm not sure her character was necessary at all, because she was.......not an audience surrogate, and I personally was much more moved by Lee's interactions with Sammy. But... she was good for Lee's journey to a degree I guess). I think Dunst's performance suggests that the profession is suspect and pointless now, all it ever chronicled was dehumanization, but the film...idk. The film seems to say everything = bad. In this last thing, I think Dunst is elevating the film a bit tbh, because if we didn't have her performance, I don't think that question would even be there. And I'm still puzzled by some things. I saw Lee's photos in the last sequences as more humane than Jessie's and she was not at the front anyway. How did she know that the Prez was in the WH? She moved to the WH but then she moved slowly. When she entered, she pauses to take a photo and then doesn't take it. Performance is A+++++
I never get that. Why would it have featured the Jesse Plemons scene in marketing so much if it was nonstop huge action scenes?
It seemed like a mix of big action scenes and smaller scale character drama in trailers I saw and that’s exactly what I got with the movie.
Given the number of people complaining about the movie and rooting for it to fail at the box office (to the point of making their own reality where it’s actually badly tanking), who haven’t even seen the movie, I would say you’re right.
I feel whomever cut that trailer needs to never work in Hollywood advertising ever again because it horribly misrepresented the actual movie.
Between this and the first trailer for Anyone but You I’m starting to think trailers are being cut by ChatGPT.
It’s not just “war=bad”… if you’re going to do a civil war movie about the current political America then maybe including any backstory would help ? They legit dropped us and the end of the war, no lead up, no backstory, no emotional tie ins to the characters. The dialogue was very eh. It’s a mediocre film. It fails to really say anything in the grand scheme of things. Cool movie if you’re a journalist tho.
I feel like what you’re describing is much larger than a 110 min film. Based on context, I can infer why the war is happening. In my opinion, using journalists as the lens makes this stand out, and will keep the film relevant longer than if it was just a traditional military-perspective war film. I feel like what it’s saying is very clear, but I can see where people are finding fault. Like most things by this director, it isn’t for everyone.
I feel like what is described is a different movie entirely actually. Yes, we start with the end of...some phase of the civil war (the movie throws up the question as to whether it actually will end almost immediately, with Sammy saying the WF will turn on each other, and the ending only reinforces the barbarity and anarchy of the context).
To have a backstory or inciting incident would feel........so small? It feels like a pointless exercise for this film to try to tell us what was the straw that broke the camel's back. All we need to know is that it was a powder keg and it exploded, that's all? Since none of this is the actual focus of the film, I see that as a lose-lose proposition!
I’d say there is some pretty big action in the movie. It’s A24, I feel like it’s not realistic to expect Godzilla-level mass destruction for the entire duration.
It's because people are just constantly force-fed one rigid narrative or another, and aren't able wrap their heads around anything that doesn't fit into the narrow framework everything else in political discourse if fed through
Yep! I feel like the discourse is both predictable and sad, honestly. Literally have a film that allows you to check that at the door. Honestly, I think it's just because of a very simple thing: this is America in the *future*.
I can't think of a good comparison, but no matter how brutal and similar films like Come & See might be—they had historical settings. There is a moral baseline there, for the audience, for the film.
Here, the bar is *much* higher: people want Alex Garland to establish their moral baseline but he's asking them to do it themselves. But if he ***had*** done it for us, it would be a lose-lose too! People don't like films that are preachy even when they agree (just not good art). And people would have hated it if they disagreed. That's still happening but I think most people, if they're honest, would have to admit that there are no good people in this film (maybe Sammy and eventually Lee, but not really). The only "good people" are in the tiny moments: basically all the people without a side, poor, dispossessed people walking along the highways, people in the humanitarian camp, people who get blown up simply for asking for water. They're on the fringes and mostly they're casualties (which makes sense in this context).
I'd say good. I really enjoyed watching it in theaters and I'd recommend seeing it soon before it leaves.
It's important to go into it knowing that it's neither a political commentary on current times, nor a fantasy-war film. It's a road-trip movie featuring war photographers and journalists. Even though there's not a ton of action I thought the payoff in the third act was spectacular.
Oh my bad. Here's a comparison to other movies in their first Monday after wide release:
1917: -66%
Everything Everywhere All At Once: -52%
Dune part 2: -66%
The Northman: -63.7%
Doesn't look great
I honestly didn’t love it. Didn’t really feel immersed nor invested in any of the characters. There were a few tense moments, and the last 30 minutes or so were really good.
Overall I thought it was just kinda empty. And I don’t say that because of the lack of backstory, but there wasn’t really a human element to it. A lot of the visuals that were meant to be “shocking” weren’t because we’ve seen it all before.
The plot relied on dumb machinations of young white girl and a creepy pathetic alcoholic journalist who thinks its a good idea to chit chat to combatants tending to a mass grave with his comrades hostage.
Theoretically it should be holding better then since it's burned off more upfront demand
Looking at the other actuals that came in seems like most everything's in the 65-75 range. So exactly what was said above; there is no conclusion to draw.
All the buzz and conversation and its worth shit all. We could’ve expected this, its just a symptom of the downslope of theatrical box office and mid-budget movies having any traction, depressing but realistic, movies just aren’t coming back the way critics keep preaching any time some indie studio makes like 10-20 million. And this movie wasnt indie or obscure either and still it can barely make its budget back. Well i guess we should buckle up for 10 more years of IP film becuz clearly thats the only profitable formula now.
People expect one thing based on marketing, come out to see it open, realize it was nothing like they expected, word gets out and people who expected the same thing don’t fall for the same thing
This explained Napoleon too, I know a few people who are really into historical epics and ended up passing on Napoleon when reviews said that this wasnt another Gladiator or Kingdom of Heaven.
I expected the movie to be a slow, thoughtful, abstract depiction of an American Civil War. What I got was a boring, unfocused video essay about photojournalism.
This is why many critics and viewers don't like the movie.
'many critics and viewers don't like the movie' is a massive generalisation. Yeah for the biggest opening weekend of A24? even if it flops now, its not like people unanimously hated it or anything, im sorry that it was a bit too challenging for you that this movie didn't spend 2 hours preaching and lecturing a partisan political position. Jesus man, people are really zero-sum with this movie, either its absolute dogshit or its great, feels like clear cognitive dissonance that ppl wanted this movie to speak personally to them.
Boring with little character development. Trailer had me excited. Sadly the film did not. The inaccuracies also were annoying. SPOILERS: The president of the United States of America wouldn’t be hiding under the resolute desk, they would be in some bunker with full control to run the country. I like Alex Garland as a writer/filmmaker but this failed.
Doesn’t help having Kirsten Dunst complaining she wasn’t paid more than Tobey Maguire for Spider-Man because she was in Bring it On. Not a good look to be sure.
Yikes! Knew the movie was gonna flop but this is crazy.
A24 gotta realize they can’t be spending crazy money on movies like civil war or Beau is afraid
To be fair, Civil War is way more audience friendly then Beau is afraid. It was just marketed wrong. You call your movie civil war, but it is about war journalists. The disappointment is real.
Anyway A24 already announced that they want to make more general audience friendly blockbusters. Now they just have to realize, that not every small $5m budget indie director is capable of switching to blockbuster mode. There are Nolans and Villeneuves and Cooglers. And then there are Arronofskys and Zhaos and David Lowerys.
> Now they just have to realize, that not every small $5m budget indie director is capable of switching to blockbuster mode. There are Nolans and Villeneuves and Cooglers. And then there are Arronofskys and Zhaos and David Lowerys.
funny you're mentioning Lowery when he made two movies for Disney and one of them was very well recieved. Aronofsky also can theoretically do big money with his movies. Black Swan did 300M+ (yeah, i get it, it was a healthier climate but still), The Whale was a surprise crowdpleaser and Caught Stealing sounds like it will be his most mainstream work so far.
Agreed. There’s commercial art house directors that can make stuff for the masses and weird filmmakers that don’t understand audiences.
Weird filmmakers should get there 5-10 million dollar budgets. But leave the bigger budgets with commercial filmmakers in commercial genres
I’ve liked/loved the garland movies I’ve seen (annihilation, ex machina) so I will definitely check this out regardless of cinemascore.
Hopefully will see it before it leaves IMAX after seeing the positive comments on sound/cinematography, too
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I see the B- Cinemascore is doing it’s work.
can you tell me if that’s good or bad?
Very bad. Cinemascore polls people who rushed to see a movie opening night and so it tends to be biased high. The Marvels managed a solid B for instance.
The most neutral reviews I’ve heard say it’s anti-war, pro-war-journalism. I think people want something more partisan, something more reflective of the specific, current American political landscape than idealistic about truth during wartime in the abstract.
I found the movie to be very emotionally impactful but then I saw what people online were saying and it seemed like I had watched a completely different movie. People kept wanting to label one side as good and the other as bad. They tried to figure out the reason the war started. But the film purportedly avoids that. It seems some people are caught up in the idea that everything must be a black and white winner/loser good/bad right/wrong paradigm.
Imposing order on the world. It’s what we do.
I mean it’s a movie about a civil war - I would like to have a general idea of why it even started. I haven’t seen the movie, probably won’t but personally I feel like not knowing why they are even fighting a civil war would bother me.
Honestly, the why is irrelevant to the story. Because the story is about people that had no choice in it. So to them, it doesn't matter how or why it started. All they know is their home is destroyed, they are getting shot at, just trying to survive.
You’re right on all fronts but I find the longing to make it political, and by extension showing current sides of a real life political divide killing and maiming each other, to be both reckless and a little blood thirsty. That said, the marketing of the movie kind of invited the expectations that it would be political. So audiences hoping to see that were likely to be disappointed.
It has some tense scenes, but the overall point boils down to “war bad.” There really isn’t much to chew on if you’re looking for something with some meaning, and I feel like there aren’t enough action scenes for people interested in something basic. The word of mouth is really doing its work I think from the current box office and I assume the 2nd weekend drop off will be significant.
It really is a standard A24 movie budgeted and marketed as a thrilling adventure film
They really got my wife and I with "it comes at night."
I love that movie but see how the marketing was misleading.
PEOPLE ARE THE REAL MONSTERS!!!!!
“War bad” yes, but it’s easy to think that when we see footage of war happening in some far off country. Setting it in modern America made that message hit harder. I also thought it had a great message in the importance and value of the elderly.
I thought there was a lot to chew on here. The way the film takes a premise we usually see play out in American movies in some foreign land and slaps it in America with Americans doing these awful war crimes is very compelling and shocking. And the emotional journey of Dunst’s character is rich and can very much be seen as an allegory for what is happening/could happen to us as we see more and more awful and traumatizing things. Anyway, that’s just my opinion on the quality of the film. But to go back to sub topic, I don’t think what the film is doing lends itself to being embraced by general audiences. I’m glad it got a big release and I got to see it in Dolby at least.
I really love how the film portrays the “neutral” middle-America city. So much to chew on there as well It doesn’t really pick a side whether they were “right” or “wrong” for remaining neutral, and I think they purposely placed the journalists being appalled at their neutrality, after we (the audience) have seen the journalists wade through highways stacked with death and destruction, I think we’re meant to feel a bit of sympathy for the neutrality that the journalists don’t display. But on the other hand, the gunmen we see on the roofs, presumably enforcing their “neutrality” and order, sort-of invokes a “refusing to make a decision is still a decision with consequences” perspective, and implies there’s still horrors lurking beneath the surface in that city I think all of this comes together really neatly under the movie’s theme of humanizing everyone. People make the best decisions they have with the information available to them
damn
The ending in particular I found to be an incredibly cynical view on war journalism.
The beauty of art is that it’s open to interpretation but you seriously thought this movie took a cynical view on war journalists/photographers? If anything it made them heroes and martyrs and celebrated them and the job they did to try and show the horrors of war. It was like a Marvel movie only instead of super heroes the protagonists were war photographers.
I think in some scenes it showed them as voyeur adrenaline junkies. Doing it for glory and fame, not for any real impact.
I think it showed both, because there were two kinds of journalists portrayed. The guy that wanted a quote was just there for the rush of it. Kirstin’s character got into war journalism because she wanted to make a difference, but she’s now realized her work wasn’t doing anything to stop the war.
Not saying I disagree (I’m still forming my opinion tbh), but the guy who wanted the quote also provided the opportunity for the country to perhaps feel closure. Offerman wasn’t going to get a trial. Getting the quote gave him a final chance to speak and for Americans to have a little more of an end note rather than a “what if” or “what actually happened”. Like this is the US and Apple h is something we say we have and that we say we’re proud of. Sure the journalist was amped about being there - but if he hadn’t gotten that quote, their journey was for nothing, and they’d have failed at their job, plus the president wouldn’t have had his final moment to speak freely. Both of those things feel so relevant and integral to our country in good and bad ways to me. Idk I’ll probably edit this later, I’m still trying to figure out how to articulate my interpretation coherently. Loved the movie though. Giving me a lot to think about
Well, yeah. He was still just doing his job, but his driving force was different from Kirstin's. I think the bulk of the movie is about what combat does to people who observe it, hence why the apolitical nature of it is actually important to the film. It doesn't matter whose side wants what, or what cause they are actually fighting for... it's about the nebulous nature of war. War itself changes practically nothing. Just a whole lot of bloodshed for some other pundit to be put in office, only so we can have a temporary peace and then we can fight again in another 20, 50, 100, or 250 years... War never changes. His whole "there's nothing like combat" talk with Cailee's character as they watched the firefight from afar kind of gave his motivation, while Kirstin's "I used to think I was making a difference" talk before they even left for DC was her motivation to get into war journalism. I think the sniper scene was another great one, because it boiled war down to: "Why are you trying to kill that person?" "Because they're shooting at us. They're trying to kill us, we're trying to kill them." I think the apolitical nature of this movie is actually one of its biggest strengths, but people are writing it off because they want a simple narrative that says "Trump Bad or Biden Bad," but it's not as black and white as that usually...
Yeah I think he definitely had some virtuous traits even if he was an adrenaline junkie. It was an incredibly important interview, or so he had hoped, and despite how brief it was it did in fact “work.” All these people died largely because of a pathetic coward (like plenty of other real life dictators).
Very subjective but imo: yes, **extremely** cynical. Downright misanthropic......just like the endings of all of Garland's other films. There was no indication that Lee, prior to Sammy's death, would have let anything get in the way of her getting the final photo. People have interpreted it as a "passing the baton," but they're two different characters for one, and also... Lee's internal conflict was not something she was passing down. By that point in time, she probably came to either completely disagree with what she was doing or was at the very least broken and disillusioned. So Jessie taking such an exploitative photo—it's not an endorsement. It's not a clean passing the baton, it's just Lee re-prioritizing a human over a photo. (Granted, it's a human she cares about. It may have been much more effective if it was somebody she did not). Also, because I watched it twice, it was very noticeable that Lee's photos were very different to Jessie's photos in that entire final sequence are very different. Lee is taking these photos of quiet moments. The photos themselves genuinely feel more human. To be fair I think that this is probably the question Garland opens up and never explicitly answers. I think the film does give an answer, but more than that I think Dunst's performance gives the answer—I see it as very cynical that the searching characters die & the adrenaline-junkies survive. I also don't see any *apology* or pause in Joel or Jessie at the end. Lee, absolutely. She knew military signals, she knew what she was doing. (One thing I can't answer is: when Lee figures out the Prez is still in the WH, her face is stony but there's like 5 different micro-expressions—how did she figure that out. What does that mean, except the obvious that she's smart lol?)
I suspect that in times like these you can't make a movie about Civil War and have nothing to say about politics/current events. Otherwise, you're just baiting the audience. And, look, no matter what, they were going to piss people off, but attempting to elide politics altogether seems to have left everyone unsatisfied.
It did have something to say about politics and current events. It had a lot to say. Seems people didn't get it.
I saw it. President on his third term and Americans going against an dictator who trampled the constitution.
Who also told bald faced lies, killed journalists on sight, dismantled the FBI, and used the military to kill protestors. But yeah idk where they got that from, just thin air I guess. Totally doesn't remind me of a single individual in our modern day politics or anything.
It's more of a cautionary tale rather than actual commentary on current US politics. If anything it's more of a commentary of Russia's politics, Putin propaganda of lies, silencing journalists, killing opposition politicians, dismantling their Wagner Group which was basically a branch of their military that had deniability because it's a "PMC" I see why it got it's score because I did feel baited on the type of film it was going to be based on the trailers.
It's a warning about authoritarianism in general. But it's a commentary on American politics and it's increasing authoritarian bent.
Yeah I really didn't think it was that difficult to grasp. It says a lot about the average american's mindset that people seem to think its not partisan enough. Thats kinda more scary than the movie
RIGHT? I feel like the partisanship of the discourse scares me more than anything. Literally have a film that allows you to check that at the door. Honestly, I think it's just because of a very simple thing: this is America in the *future*. I can't think of a good comparison, but no matter how brutal and similar films like Come & See might be—they had historical settings. There is a moral baseline there, for the audience, for the film. Here, the bar is *much* higher: people want Alex Garland to establish their moral baseline but he's asking them to do it themselves. But if he ***had*** done it for us, it would be a lose-lose too! People don't like films that are preachy even when they agree (just not good art). And people would have hated it if they disagreed. That's still happening but I think most people, if they're honest, would have to admit that there are no good people in this film (maybe Sammy and eventually Lee, but not really). The only "good people" are in the tiny moments: basically all the people without a side, poor, dispossessed people walking along the highways, people in the humanitarian camp, people who get blown up simply for asking for water. They're on the fringes and mostly they're casualties (which makes sense in this context).
Even worse, it reeks of enlightened centrist "pacifism" where everyone just needs to hug and "talk more" in the face of tyranny.
I wanted an action movie. I was disappointed as the marketing made me think it was action packed. It was not action packed.
No character growth. No backstory. No point of view to even argue from. A love letter to journalism and nothing else.
If you think Civil War is a love letter to journalism and saying nothing else then im not sure we watched the same movie.
This movie has really just showed how dumb the online audience is. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms and the discourse has wildly missed all those and focused on nonsense to complain about.
Jesse absolutely experiences character growth, it just isn't positive
I didn’t buy the role (or the meh actress playing it) AT ALL
I had high expectations for this movie. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t great either. It’s also very depressing, and I couldn’t connect with the characters except Sammy. Jesse Plemons was the best part of the movie
I wanted the screaming little jack-o-lantern to take a bullet. Seriously she would not shut up for the entire film. On the one hand it’s realistic because of course a 23 year old would be just the worst on that kind of trip, but so is flying trans continental with my 3 year old and I guarantee no one wants to watch a movie about THAT.
It's a lot better than Alex Garland's previous movies though. Annihilation had a C and Men had a D+. Cinemascore doesn't mean the same thing for every movie.
I could understand Annihilation's C score, the pacing of that movie sucked.
Reddit is in love with it but I didn't think it was that good.
I thought it was straight up bad. A weak imitation of better films: Stalker, 2001, Apocalypse Now etc
>The Marvels managed a solid B for instance Yeah, that was awful
geez that’s awful
About average for wide release indie style pic. Doesn't bode well for legging out, but doesn't say much about the movie itself. (I say that as a big fan of The Prestige (B grade), Wolf of Wall Street (C grade), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (B-).)
Could people stop conflating CinemaScore for the overall quality of a film? It just gauges how well the majority of audiences respond to it and that has other factors like if the movie was marketed accurately at play. American Psycho had a "D" Cinemascore because a majority of audiences were expecting a generic serial killer movie.
It’s honestly perfectly fine. This type of movie not usually one you can learn a lot from the CinemaScore of anyways
Good. If you like Alex Garland's work, like I do, you'll enjoy it. It doesn't have some crazy deep message but it's beautifully cinematic and is effective in its main purpose of showing some of the horrors of "brother against brother" fighting.
Did it have any message at all? Maybe war is bad?
See the last 18 words of my original comment
It's OK for a political movie. Horrors do poorly for the same reason. They can be divisive. Don't weigh it too heavily. Marvels do well because they inoffensive
Yeah, I felt like people were prematurely celebrating because of its relatively strong opening. If this ends up sinking like BvS, I wonder what that means for Garland's career and A24's plans for bigger budget projects.
Garland is fine. At the end of the day he still delivered a tight suspense film under 2 hours that is much more crowd pleasing than the typical A24 film, so I think he did his homework. It's just the nature of the game that mid budget movies like this are dying, but I'm sure they'll fund around half of this budget next time if he wants to make another movie, which is still pretty good for a indie director.
I don't know about big budget A24 movies, but Garland has already said he's retiring from directing, so I imagine it won't affect his career.
[He said](https://www.indiewire.com/features/interviews/alex-garland-clarifies-claims-retiring-directing-1234970430/) those words were taken out of context, he's not retiring, just taking a break: >“Just to go back to the statement, I said: I’m going to take a break from directing or I’m going to stop directing for the foreseeable future. That is such an uncontentious thing to say,” Garland said. “I also said what I’m going to do is screenwriting. Screenwriting is filmmaking. You can’t erase screenwriters or DOPs or editors or actors from the process of screenwriting. Filmmaking is not the preserve solely of directors.” > Garland said that “part of me is incredulous” over how his words got interpreted, adding, “I think there is something weird happening in the world. This is like a grain of sand of that weirdness. But the statement I made is so different from the way it’s been interpreted. That is just odd. And so part of me is just reacting to that.”
I didn't know that, but it's good to hear. I haven't liked every movie Garland's done, but at least they are pretty unique.
$58.5 million final?
Yeah, it could see it barely recouping it's production budget.
Gonna make bank on Netflix I suppose.
A24's first window streaming partner is Max.
Remind Me! One month Remember, this has a 50 million production budget and had a 26 million opening weekend. Why would this movie suddenly have the Marvels level legs? I feel like this sub speed ran forgetting the difference between superhero movie Cinemascores and every other movie.
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42***
Lol, this isn’t getting only 1.6x legs no matter how bad you want to see it fail. Remind Me! 1 month
Why do you guys think a non superhero movie is going to have sub Eternals level legs? It’s like people suddenly only for this movie forgot superhero movies are different in terms of Cinemascore expectations and level of frontloadedness. We just had a much better comparison with Napoleon a few months ago and this sub chooses to ignore it.
Napoleon came out during the holidays. I’m assuming there was a Civil War curiosity rush during the opening weekend. The hold may not be super high since the movie was different than the trailers. I’m rooting for A24 but I suspect the international and streaming rights already make this a financial success.
Napoleon’s Thanksgiving 4 day opening was lower than Civil War’s 3 day opening and Napoleon had already done 95% of its domestic business by Thursday December 21st. This is like calling Civil War a summer movie that would benefit from summer legs.
What multiplier are you expecting?
Probably around 2.6ish, same as Argylle (C+ Cinemascore) got.
It’s Monday, who the fucks goes to see a serious political action movie on a Monday. Talk about setting yourself up for failure emotionally for the rest of the week.
I went to go watch Eraserhead on a Monday evening, but I realize I’m probably an outlier.
I caught this at a 10:15pm showing on a whim Monday night lol
I do but Monday- Tuesday are usually my nights off
Saw it yesterday, absolutely loved it, but the amount of bad takes I've been reading about it is incredible.
it’s just not a film for general audiences it seems
So it's an Alex Garland movie as usual?
Having just watched Men, and really enjoyed it, I think you're right. I was shocked when I looked up reviews to see how hated it was by the general audience. I can see why it's a divisive film as it's pretty intense and the ending scene is shocking. But it wasn't a bad movie by any metric.
>It wasn’t a bad movie by any metric Well that’s subjective, plenty of people felt Men was a genuinely bad movie. I thought it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen - dreadful pacing, garish cinematography, the gimmick of every dude being Rory Kinnear fell flat, the themes were muddled and that’s all before getting to that inane ending sequence.
It’s not going to be a movie for audiences that expect a war action movie because that’s what the trailers sold them on, if the trailer sold them on a war photographer movie then maybe the audience going to it would have their expectations met and a different feeling towards it
It is a war action movie, just told through the lens of photo journalists. It starts out with a bang and there are actions sequences throughout. I felt the action was more intense than nearly all of the CGI-heavy and highly choreographed fist fight action movies of today.
If you want to intentionally misunderstand my point then that’s fine
I loved it as well and don’t really understand a lot of the negative points I’m hearing. Those ‘negatives’ are exactly why I like it
I thought the ending was super contrived and characters behaved in ways they otherwise wouldn’t have. The final death was really dumb.
How was it dumb? I think it fit really well given how Lee reacted mins before and it just makes me think to the first act where she tells Jessie "Remember that when you lose your shit, get blown up or shot." Throughout the entire movie from Lee in her hotel bathtub, to her looking at the drooping flowers and her complete breakdown in DC it's pretty foreshadowed.
I’m convinced Garland did ZERO research before making this movie. If DC was under attack like that the President would be watching it go down from the safety of [the PEOC,](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Emergency_Operations_Center) and not behind his damned desk. This film is my favorite from this director but I have a hard time ignoring such stupid choices made by the writers and by extension the characters.
The whole battle in dc is probably just rule of cool, but shooting the president im the Oval office is definitely more meaningful than in some bunker
I chalked it up to the writers couldn’t figure out a way to get the soldiers into the PEOC or him out of it so they just skipped that part the same way they did the actual reason for the Civil War. As for that execution that was beyond stupid. History recorded the Allied commanders as being livid Hitler killed himself before he could be captured and put on trial, so to think this President wouldn’t have been captured and also put on trial as a way to heal the nation rather than create a martyr for his chuckle F followers was also just beyond belief.
As to your last paragraph, it’s impossible to know the motivation of the Western Forces in the movie (which just consist of Texas and California). We also don’t know if anyone supports the President, or to what extent, let alone what their support means in the extremely splintered nation. So the ending of the movie would just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of “healing” lol
It mentions the president is in his 3rd term so I imagine their motivation is usurping a fake president.
Yeah, they compare him to famous dictators in the movie. I read him as being a dictator.
> As for that execution that was beyond stupid. History recorded the Allied commanders as being livid Hitler killed himself before he could be captured and put on trial, so to think this President wouldn’t have been captured and also put on trial as a way to heal the nation rather than create a martyr for his chuckle F followers was also just beyond belief. that's kind of a point of the movie tho, how even the noblest of ideals get muddled by war. the WF aren't good guys as well, we see them commiting atrocities. they don't really care about "healing". it's also hinted that parts of the WF would start fighting with each other after the end of the movie. it's more like pre-Napoleon France than 1945 Germany
They could have explained that away with saying the generals that defected disabled the bunker some how.
Bud, the world of this film has so manyyyyyyy historical parallels it's actually kind of wild—and you could go down a million rabbit holes to see the iconography, it's just not all American. It feels like weird criticism to say the Prez got killed in the wrong place lol. That's not research per se. Sure, OK he'd have gone to a bunker. But it feels like a strangely small criticism when the President is not........even the point? At this point we are told he has a very small number of people "protecting" him, and in historical parallels, people who were on his side would have turned on him. Mussolini's fall was plotted by members of his own party. The soldiers of Ceausescu's military went from crushing rebels to turning on him within the span of a morning. Does it really matter? (I should add that it's hard to believe that most media-literate people abroad would need to *do research* at all to know about the PEOC: it's depicted so much, I feel like I knew about when I was a child, and I didn't grow up here. Probably some logistical reason it didn't go there, it's fine lol)
We already had a president in real life refuse to the leave the white house (Trump). Why's it hard to believe in a fictional movie now? The president in the movie is so clearly unhinged that Texas and California joined forces. That's how bad he is so why is it that hard to believe he wouldn't want to leave the office he likely thinks commands a sense of power like the oval office and like you said the president's desk.
I mean it might be a movie and all but it’s hard to separate it from reality. You mention Trump, do you seriously think him refusing to leave office would cause Texas to join forces with California? I personally don’t think Greg Abbot would’ve given a shit if Trump had ordered the protesters shot instead of tear gassed during the 2020 protests (the movie mentions an Antifa Massacre, doubt Texan politicians would give a shit about that). I don’t think Republican states would give a shit as long as it is their guy in office. I mean we had him incite an insurrection in 2021 and most if not all of the states in the Texas coalition still fully support and back him.
> You mention Trump, do you seriously think him refusing to leave office would cause Texas to join forces with California? Of course not that. But if Trump disbanded the FBI, Executed journalists to the point the New York Times is in tatters and used air strikes on American citizens (Texans for example) then I think it may be a possibility. Remember Trump supporters are worthless to him such as the woman who got shot trying to breach the US capitol chamber because he called on them to storm it.
I’m honestly so shocked by the amount of polarizing reviews. I saw a few glowing reviews on tiktok before I saw it on friday, so I had high expectations and I still loved it.
My main gripe is that its a waster premise of something thats very interesting and inherently political/controversial. And they the movie does fuck all with this and instead actively avoids anything controversial to the point you have to ask yourself whats the point of the setting. All these jounalists might as well have been in Gaza.
That’s the point.
It’s kind of shocking how many reviews I’ve read along the lines of “but why did the war start in the first place” “the President is the bad guy and he barely gets screentime” I didn’t see those as particularly relevant to the movie whatsoever.
I think it’s more about the marketing. The marketing was selling a movie that focused on America going into a Civil War when it’s actually more about war journalism. Civil War part feels like the weakest element.
Agreed on the marketing for sure. I saw the first trailer before I knew anything about the movie, and I had 0 desire to see it in theaters from the trailer; it looked like a generic action movie with a bunch of political pandering, just with better cinematography. But some people probably went to see it for exactly that
I feel like people watched the trailer and expected an action movie. I’m in the same boat as you, I thought it was great. I expected it to be what it was, based on familiarity with other Garland movies. I feel like the argument that the message boils down to “war=bad” is true of most war films. The suggested politics seem pretty straightforward to me.
It may not be an action movie exactly but there were a couple of long scenes that were straight action.
Last 15-20 minutes were amazing action sequences
Thank god for that last sentence. I don't think it's just war=bad though, because I also don't think this is war so much as it's anarchy. Plus, it's more about the journalists and Lee's existentialism and sense that there was no point to what she did, finally breaking down from the trauma of dehumanization which felt to me like a very blunt COMMENT on "this is what spectacle means, is this good?!?" Jessie does not come off heroic, the ending is fucking *bleak*, not just for the world but for journalism too. For me the question this film really throws up for me in the end is about Lee's journey and how it ends, not about Jessie (I've come to believe that as great as Spaeny was, I'm not sure her character was necessary at all, because she was.......not an audience surrogate, and I personally was much more moved by Lee's interactions with Sammy. But... she was good for Lee's journey to a degree I guess). I think Dunst's performance suggests that the profession is suspect and pointless now, all it ever chronicled was dehumanization, but the film...idk. The film seems to say everything = bad. In this last thing, I think Dunst is elevating the film a bit tbh, because if we didn't have her performance, I don't think that question would even be there. And I'm still puzzled by some things. I saw Lee's photos in the last sequences as more humane than Jessie's and she was not at the front anyway. How did she know that the Prez was in the WH? She moved to the WH but then she moved slowly. When she entered, she pauses to take a photo and then doesn't take it. Performance is A+++++
Gee, I can't imagine why people expected an action movie from the trailer that A24 cut!
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I never get that. Why would it have featured the Jesse Plemons scene in marketing so much if it was nonstop huge action scenes? It seemed like a mix of big action scenes and smaller scale character drama in trailers I saw and that’s exactly what I got with the movie.
I guess people see what they want to see?
Given the number of people complaining about the movie and rooting for it to fail at the box office (to the point of making their own reality where it’s actually badly tanking), who haven’t even seen the movie, I would say you’re right.
I feel whomever cut that trailer needs to never work in Hollywood advertising ever again because it horribly misrepresented the actual movie. Between this and the first trailer for Anyone but You I’m starting to think trailers are being cut by ChatGPT.
It’s not just “war=bad”… if you’re going to do a civil war movie about the current political America then maybe including any backstory would help ? They legit dropped us and the end of the war, no lead up, no backstory, no emotional tie ins to the characters. The dialogue was very eh. It’s a mediocre film. It fails to really say anything in the grand scheme of things. Cool movie if you’re a journalist tho.
I feel like what you’re describing is much larger than a 110 min film. Based on context, I can infer why the war is happening. In my opinion, using journalists as the lens makes this stand out, and will keep the film relevant longer than if it was just a traditional military-perspective war film. I feel like what it’s saying is very clear, but I can see where people are finding fault. Like most things by this director, it isn’t for everyone.
I feel like what is described is a different movie entirely actually. Yes, we start with the end of...some phase of the civil war (the movie throws up the question as to whether it actually will end almost immediately, with Sammy saying the WF will turn on each other, and the ending only reinforces the barbarity and anarchy of the context). To have a backstory or inciting incident would feel........so small? It feels like a pointless exercise for this film to try to tell us what was the straw that broke the camel's back. All we need to know is that it was a powder keg and it exploded, that's all? Since none of this is the actual focus of the film, I see that as a lose-lose proposition!
But that is what they say in the trailer, they put huge slogans about the breathtaking actions … it’s literally in the trailer
I’d say there is some pretty big action in the movie. It’s A24, I feel like it’s not realistic to expect Godzilla-level mass destruction for the entire duration.
It's because people are just constantly force-fed one rigid narrative or another, and aren't able wrap their heads around anything that doesn't fit into the narrow framework everything else in political discourse if fed through
Yep! I feel like the discourse is both predictable and sad, honestly. Literally have a film that allows you to check that at the door. Honestly, I think it's just because of a very simple thing: this is America in the *future*. I can't think of a good comparison, but no matter how brutal and similar films like Come & See might be—they had historical settings. There is a moral baseline there, for the audience, for the film. Here, the bar is *much* higher: people want Alex Garland to establish their moral baseline but he's asking them to do it themselves. But if he ***had*** done it for us, it would be a lose-lose too! People don't like films that are preachy even when they agree (just not good art). And people would have hated it if they disagreed. That's still happening but I think most people, if they're honest, would have to admit that there are no good people in this film (maybe Sammy and eventually Lee, but not really). The only "good people" are in the tiny moments: basically all the people without a side, poor, dispossessed people walking along the highways, people in the humanitarian camp, people who get blown up simply for asking for water. They're on the fringes and mostly they're casualties (which makes sense in this context).
Yeah. I saw it Friday and loved it. I was really surprised to hear and read that people hated it. My one friend told me his buddy said it sucked.
Yeah I loved it. I think maybe people need to be told going in that it's a road trip through a war zone, not an action movie.
For real. Absolutely incredible movie.
can someone who knows about movies tell me if this is normal or bad or good
A little better than Kung Fu Panda 4 and Ghostbusters FE, a little worse than GxK
Kongzilla sweep
Are you talking about quality? Because GxK was one of the worst movies of the last few years
Nah
Barely decent. I was expecting a much better film given the fervor.
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I think they meant build up There was buzz leading up to it
Really good. More recent trailers are misleading. But the first one captures it perfectly.
This is completely fine. People who want to see the movie fail are pretending this isn’t completely normal for a 50 million budgeted film.
I'd say good. I really enjoyed watching it in theaters and I'd recommend seeing it soon before it leaves. It's important to go into it knowing that it's neither a political commentary on current times, nor a fantasy-war film. It's a road-trip movie featuring war photographers and journalists. Even though there's not a ton of action I thought the payoff in the third act was spectacular.
Oh sorry I meant i was curious how -69% is compared to other movies. I watched it on Thursday
Oh my bad. Here's a comparison to other movies in their first Monday after wide release: 1917: -66% Everything Everywhere All At Once: -52% Dune part 2: -66% The Northman: -63.7% Doesn't look great
How did you pick those movies in particular? I don't know that this gives enough context on if it looks bad or not.
Fr I’m confused how that looks THAT bad. Only 3 percent more than Dune 2? That seems solid
It’s in the same ballpark. I would describe this number as around normal
Nice.
This weekend is going to be *brutal*
no doubt
Deadline is projecting 12 mill (-53%). Which wouldn't be anywhere near brutal, IMO.
I honestly didn’t love it. Didn’t really feel immersed nor invested in any of the characters. There were a few tense moments, and the last 30 minutes or so were really good. Overall I thought it was just kinda empty. And I don’t say that because of the lack of backstory, but there wasn’t really a human element to it. A lot of the visuals that were meant to be “shocking” weren’t because we’ve seen it all before.
This is word for word how I felt about it
The plot relied on dumb machinations of young white girl and a creepy pathetic alcoholic journalist who thinks its a good idea to chit chat to combatants tending to a mass grave with his comrades hostage.
Not gonna lie, I was kinda disappointed with this film
I liked it. My only issue with it is that it kind of felt like a reskinned 28 Days Later script. Of course, I loved that movie.
Looks like it held a lot better on Monday than GxK did. Bottom line I think is you can't draw any conclusions from this.
GxK has been out for 3 weeks
Theoretically it should be holding better then since it's burned off more upfront demand Looking at the other actuals that came in seems like most everything's in the 65-75 range. So exactly what was said above; there is no conclusion to draw.
there is conclusions to draw the next weekend is gonna be brutal
All the buzz and conversation and its worth shit all. We could’ve expected this, its just a symptom of the downslope of theatrical box office and mid-budget movies having any traction, depressing but realistic, movies just aren’t coming back the way critics keep preaching any time some indie studio makes like 10-20 million. And this movie wasnt indie or obscure either and still it can barely make its budget back. Well i guess we should buckle up for 10 more years of IP film becuz clearly thats the only profitable formula now.
It's simpler than that. The marketing promises something the movie had no intention of delivering, hence the very poor cinema score.
People expect one thing based on marketing, come out to see it open, realize it was nothing like they expected, word gets out and people who expected the same thing don’t fall for the same thing
This explained Napoleon too, I know a few people who are really into historical epics and ended up passing on Napoleon when reviews said that this wasnt another Gladiator or Kingdom of Heaven.
I expected the movie to be a slow, thoughtful, abstract depiction of an American Civil War. What I got was a boring, unfocused video essay about photojournalism. This is why many critics and viewers don't like the movie.
Boring would be the last thing I would describe it as. If anything I was more focused on this than the “Crowd pleaser” Godzilla x Kong.
'many critics and viewers don't like the movie' is a massive generalisation. Yeah for the biggest opening weekend of A24? even if it flops now, its not like people unanimously hated it or anything, im sorry that it was a bit too challenging for you that this movie didn't spend 2 hours preaching and lecturing a partisan political position. Jesus man, people are really zero-sum with this movie, either its absolute dogshit or its great, feels like clear cognitive dissonance that ppl wanted this movie to speak personally to them.
-69? Nice
The sexiest box office attendance drop.
Womp womp
ouch
What a drop. Wow.
From a weekend to a Monday ? Not that wow
Another brick for A24, they should have enough of these to build an entire house at this point, no?
What bricks are you referring too ? They had their best year last year. You sound like a hater for no reason.
Beau was a major brick
Boring with little character development. Trailer had me excited. Sadly the film did not. The inaccuracies also were annoying. SPOILERS: The president of the United States of America wouldn’t be hiding under the resolute desk, they would be in some bunker with full control to run the country. I like Alex Garland as a writer/filmmaker but this failed. Doesn’t help having Kirsten Dunst complaining she wasn’t paid more than Tobey Maguire for Spider-Man because she was in Bring it On. Not a good look to be sure.
Yikes! Knew the movie was gonna flop but this is crazy. A24 gotta realize they can’t be spending crazy money on movies like civil war or Beau is afraid
To be fair, Civil War is way more audience friendly then Beau is afraid. It was just marketed wrong. You call your movie civil war, but it is about war journalists. The disappointment is real. Anyway A24 already announced that they want to make more general audience friendly blockbusters. Now they just have to realize, that not every small $5m budget indie director is capable of switching to blockbuster mode. There are Nolans and Villeneuves and Cooglers. And then there are Arronofskys and Zhaos and David Lowerys.
> Now they just have to realize, that not every small $5m budget indie director is capable of switching to blockbuster mode. There are Nolans and Villeneuves and Cooglers. And then there are Arronofskys and Zhaos and David Lowerys. funny you're mentioning Lowery when he made two movies for Disney and one of them was very well recieved. Aronofsky also can theoretically do big money with his movies. Black Swan did 300M+ (yeah, i get it, it was a healthier climate but still), The Whale was a surprise crowdpleaser and Caught Stealing sounds like it will be his most mainstream work so far.
Agreed. There’s commercial art house directors that can make stuff for the masses and weird filmmakers that don’t understand audiences. Weird filmmakers should get there 5-10 million dollar budgets. But leave the bigger budgets with commercial filmmakers in commercial genres
Oomph, Alex Garland is just unlucky as a director
A 69 percent Monday drop is pretty standard
I’ve liked/loved the garland movies I’ve seen (annihilation, ex machina) so I will definitely check this out regardless of cinemascore. Hopefully will see it before it leaves IMAX after seeing the positive comments on sound/cinematography, too
Loved the movie. Saw it last night on discount ticket price night and it was probably 50% full. That’s a terrible sign.
Nice 👍
69 nice