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Because the idea of a civil war is such an obvious hook, the other loaded high concept, the way the movie presents itself as a walk around atrocity war images that are meaningful because they take place on US soil, is clear more central to it and its focus on photojournalism (and how it operates as a stand in for movies itself). Garland seems very self-aware about what he is doing without having much of an idea of what to do with its inherent contradictions, so Civil War often feels on the verge of becoming more intriguing than it is. The bombast of the images beat the audience down the way Michael Bay can do, but with little of whatever minor aesthetic pleasures or the gusto that at least complicate them. It is a very one-note movie and very narrow conceived, not so much the small focus on those characters, nothing is allowed to breathe, no character or performance can move beyond the general over conception of them.
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