The America depicted in Civil War is not half as alarming as the real one | Emma Brockes

It’s a gripping ride that, depending on your view, is either shrewdly non-partisan in a way that assumes the audience can fill in the gaps for themselves (the New York Times), an empty but entertaining romp with lots of explosions (the New Yorker) or a provocation to liberals who don’t understand what movies are for (the Hollywood Reporter).

Photograph: Murray Close/A24Instead, we jump to an unspecified near-future in which the US president, a generic strongman played by Nick Offerman, has seized an illegal third term and disbanded the FBI.

Two factions across three states have popped up to secede from the US, a coalition between Texas and California fighting under a two-star flag and calling themselves the Western Front, and, separately and with perfect on-brand randomness, Florida, doing its own thing.

Instead, the story focuses on a band of plucky photojournalists, led by a brilliant Kirsten Dunst, as they battle to get from New York to the capital to document the fall of DC.

The timing matters, and the blandness of the film’s politics, along with its can’t-be-arsed approach to broadening the scope of the story, makes it feel less like a cautionary tale and more like a piece of fantasy unanchored from history.

Coming home on Tuesday and turning on the news to hear about Trump nodding off in court, I flashed to the under-imagined world of the film and thought: nah, couldn’t happen here.