I saw it. One of my friends is a super nerd and insists on seeing every comic book movie. It was as terrible as the critics are saying. A courtroom drama musical where the Joker gets raped at the end, or at least implied. Plus, Spoiler He's not the real Joker. I get that it was a meta-criticism on nutbag fans, but it just wasn't fun to watch. Neither was the first one for that matter.
Circling back to this. I think because of the extremely heightened tensions in the United States right now, when people heard they were making a movie called "Civil War," they expected it to be a commentary on those tensions, when it's really not. It's a movie that tries to make us care about the wars we see on television, by transposing those conflicts to our own backyard to try to make us empathize with what it must be like. To show us what these people are living through by presenting what it would be like if it happened to us. To put it succinctly, it's not a movie about Americans, it's a movie for Americans.
Sorry, still think this is bullshit. They needed to create some kind of connection to the actual country other than blowing up recognizable memorials. There was no story, so empathy is impossible. If they had swapped the scenery for another English-speaking country, it would have felt like the same movie. I still think there was a better story that got cut out. Surely they didn't skip filming literally every single indicator or explanation of conflict. But regardless - all that was presented was a cynical mentor trope and a coming of age/loss of innocence story against a distracting backdrop. They just missed. It either needed to focus more directly on the 3-4 characters so that I would give a shit when someone died, or it needed to focus more on the war so I would feel more involved.
Okay, Marissa Tomei, Glenn Close, Brendan Fraser, M Emmet Walsh are also in this. It won't win any awards, but it's 90 minutes of entertainment. I thought it was funny and different. Amd there's a big monkey.
The story you're looking for, which did the "War Comes Home" better than this movie, is the game Modern Warfare 2 from 2009. https://youtu.be/jTmrwWsb9kY?si=FmlvNQB696dnO9JJ
Here (2024) Robert Zemeckis has directed some of the most iconic movies of the last 40 years, and this can be added to that list. This movie does an incredible job of encapsulating life and the meaning of place. I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of “place” in life. What was here, where I’m standing, before I arrived? What will be here after I’m gone? This fascination is why I’ve hiked the same trails for 50+ years, visited my old neighborhoods, and still go to my old bar. Those places hold my history and memories, and I somehow feel like I can connect to the past by existing again in those spaces. In my opinion it’s simply a fantastic movie, but It hits particularly hard if you’re in your 50s or 60s, and have experienced love, loss, losing your parents and friends, watching children grow up and find their own lives, etc. I almost feel like this movie was made specifically for me. You may not feel that way, but I highly recommend watching it.