Alex Garland’s Civil War is not just a story told from the point of view of journalists, which would be taxing enough. It’s a movie about journalism, which is a hilariously narrow and tedious preoccupation for a movie that’s nominally concerned with present-day civil conflict. 

But it’s ironically very fitting: reporters spent four years playacting as valiant rebel war correspondents in Trump-occupied America. They’re bracing for the possibility of another term. Civil War takes their histrionic mythos about themselves and portrays it as literal reality.