Film Shapes

This is Alex Garland's fourth film as director. He first wrote some novels, including The Beach , then moved onto writing films (often for Danny Boyle, though strangely, not  The Beach ), and then moved onto directing his own scripts. His debut as a writer/director was the excellent Ex Machina . Sadly, this looks more and more like a false dawn. His follow-up, Annihilation , had some promise but lacked something, maybe humour, maybe humility, maybe just an experienced head. His next film, Men , again began with an interesting premise, but rapidly disappeared up its own arse.  So, now to Civil War . First off, it's an improvement on his previous effort. It's set in the near future where the unnamed U.S. President (Nick Offerman) is scrabbling to save his bacon from the approaching Western Forces of California and Texas. It would appear that the 'United States' are much less united in this alternate reality. But here's Garland's proposal - this might actually ...