Civil War is the stuff of nightmares in the new film of the same name. American carnage has come to pass in Manhattan, Pittsburgh and beyond. It also looks naggingly sexy. In a slick slab of provocation from writer-director Alex Garland, with Kirsten Dunst as a veteran war photographer, social collapse makes for a pumping blockbuster. Technically, the movie is a wowzer: Apocalypse Now gone TikTok. As always with backers A24, the marketing is beautiful.

Welcome to the movies in 2024. Garland (Ex Machina, Men) plays peekaboo with reality throughout. Set in a non-specific day after tomorrow, states have seceded and militias become armies, but with familiar bearings scrambled. (One alliance implausibly unites Texas and California.) Amid the careful fiction, the film can’t quite resist a crafty wink. To begin, a coiffed president of the rump republic cranks the hyperbole to promise “the greatest victory in the history of mankind”.

DC proves a mere sideshow, though. The bait-and-switch does not end there. What A24 are selling is a grandly tasteless disaster movie with the killer asteroid replaced by other Americans; a nudge in the ribs ahead of an epochal election. In practice, Garland seems embarrassed by his own pitch. Half the time, Civil War is precisely what you’d think: extrajudicial executions set to a blankly jarring De La Soul needle drop. The other half earnestly insists it is a sombre tribute to war reportage. Hmm.