Zack Snyder’s new original movie series “Rebel Moon” has started with little more than a derivative whisper.
“Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire” follows Kora (Sofia Boutella), a former imperium soldier who has to rally warriors to defeat the tyrannical Motherworld. After traveling across the galaxy and finding helpful hands in Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), Kai (Charlie Hunnam), Tarak (Staz Nair), Nemesis (Doona Bae), Titus (Djimon Hounsou), and Darrian Bloodaxe (Ray Fisher) the beginnings of a rebellion are fully ignited.
“Rebel Moon” is a hodgepodge of hundreds of ideas from other fantasy and science fiction series, all of which do these ideas 1000 times better. It has so few original ideas that it sometimes feels like it’s directly ripping off popular fantasy and science fiction series. It has no saving grace when it comes to originality to the point where if any moment in the movie is described you will be describing a moment from a better movie that came out decades ago. There is a line that a lot of science fiction and fantasy movies straddle when it comes to originality and Zac Snyder’s “Rebel Moon” leaps over that line and into a massive ravine of unoriginality.
Somehow Zack Snyder has done the seemingly impossible and made a movie where almost nothing happens yet he makes that nothing go by too fast. The pacing is somehow simultaneously at a snail’s pace and at a sprint the entire time. It’s a constant cycle of going to a new planet, “oh, look this person is powerful and cool”, flashy fight scene, the person joins, they go to a new planet. Over and over again. It creates a strange feeling where nothing happens on each of these planets or with these new characters because there isn’t enough time to be able to observe what’s happening before going to the next location.
The screen time of characters is another major flaw of the movie. There are so many moments where it’s clear that Snyder wants you to care about these characters or feel sad about something, but the only thing that is sad about this movie is how wastefully the plethora of great actors and actresses are utilized. Even when they are utilized the dialogue doesn’t help them. An actor can only make a performance as good as the script and in this case the script is filled with overused cliches and constant exposition dumps.
As with every Snyder movie there is a lot of slow motion. “Rebel Moon” may be his most egregious use of it in his whole career. During the 134 minute runtime it feels like at least 30 minutes of it is in slow motion. There are some scenes where it will transition from normal speed to slow motion and then to a slower slow motion. Every action scene is at least 50% slow motion with some being almost entirely in slow motion. Save for the final battle that still uses a lot of it, but not nearly as much as the other ones.
This movie is almost violently computer generated to the point where it can possibly take you completely out of the movie. Most shots that show a wide landscape with actors in it looks like a sound stage with a mediocre to awful rendering behind it. There was a strange decision in the movie to use an extremely wide anamorphic lens to shoot the entire movie which makes the outskirts of the screen blurry at best and muddies the already not so great effects at worst. The color grading also feels off with it feeling like you’re watching a cinematic trailer for a video game for nearly the entire runtime, especially in fight scenes.
Even in this mess of a movie there is one piece of gold, the costume design. The costumes look amazing and are all unique. If there was more time spent with the characters they would most likely compliment them well. They are all unique and recognizable which will help with identification because of the lack of screen time for most of them.
With Netflix trying to artificially create a situation like the “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” cut, an R rated director’s cut of “Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire” will release early next year. The director’s cut may be a little better, but how much better can more of an awful movie be?
With an extremely cliche and derivative story, mediocre to awful effects, and underdeveloped characters “Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire” is a massive disappointment and a huge misstep in trying to create a “Star Wars” level franchise. “Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scar Giver” will see a release on April 19, 2024, but with the lackluster viewing experience of part one you will most likely want to save your time and skip this two part event.
Directed by Zack Snyder
Starring: Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, Charlie Hunnam, Anthony Hopkins, Staz Nair
Rated PG-13
Runtime: 134 minutes
My Rating: ★