Alex Garland’s previous film, Men (2022), was provocative, but it provoked one’s attention for the sake of a statement without much depth to it. Civil War, the filmmaker’s latest, is marketed and branded as a highly provocative sign-of-the-times political thriller. It wants on the one hand to be an eerie premonition of where the United States Democracy is heading as the country trudges through yet another contentious election year. But it is, in execution, far less provocative than it hopes to be, despite claiming to have a deeply resonant statement to make.
If Civil War is on the one hand an aspiring premonition, it is on the other a Continue reading Civil War (2024) Movie Review →
I have a distinct feeling that Alex Garland planted things in Men, the writer-director’s new film starring Jessie Buckley and a bevy of Rory Kinnears, which I have not entirely picked up on. Namely, allusions to religion and mythology which fly outside my knowledge structures. Yet what I did understand about Men, what was left after those allusions are stripped away and narrative and theme remain, was altogether so blunt and superficial that I in moments thought I was watching a parody of a specific breed of arthouse film. A parody of the exact film Men is.
This is not a case of I didn’t understand the film, therefore I don’t like it. On the contrary, Continue reading Men (2022) Movie Review →
There is a scene midway through Annihilation, the latest science fiction expedition from Ex Machina writer-director Alex Garland, where a woman gets yanked off of the ground and rag-dolled by what appears to be a half-bear, half-warthog creature. It’s all right, though. We already knew this was coming.
The woman is one of five tasked with venturing into the “Shimmer,” an enclosed, alien space that crash landed on Earth near a lighthouse and began slowly expanding. Inside the Shimmer, the Continue reading Annihilation (2018) Movie Review →
One man. Thousands of movies.
CineFiles Movie Reviews 