The otherwise familiar sight of American cityscapes is marred by plumes of black smoke pouring upwards into the sky. On the streets below, tanks sit stationary at the traffic lights, the highways are choked with abandoned cars, the shells of burnt-out helicopters lie in the middle of the JC Penney’s parking lot and the Wi-Fi keeps dropping out. Welcome to Alex Garland’s vision of a war-torn America where what once was a fantastical conceit seems disturbingly plausible through the writer/directors’ English lens, with his tale of a band of journalists and photographers travelling across a war torn dis-united states.