Rebel Moon Pt1 Review: A Beauty with Nothing in it
Zack Snyder is perhaps one of the most controversial director as of now. Critics never really enjoyed his movies while his fan base allowed him to bring home an Oscar for Army of the Dead and Justice League. It is with that fanbase we have gotten Snyder’s version of Justice League and everyone assumes that with all the money in the world Snyder is able to craft the greatest movie ever. While I don’t think Justice League worked because it is a 100% Snyder, I did still enjoy the style and epicness he brought in. Now all he has to do is find a studio who would give him all the money they have to make anything he wants. Netflix being the only one who would do it allowed him to make Army of the Dead which should launch a franchise. Now Snyder wants to create another franchise with Rebel Moon.
With this in mind is Rebel Moon even a good movie to begin with? Unfortunately that is not very true. As all stories have,there are scenes before the pivotal action begins being the establishment. From the establishment the story is able to allow the audience to be introduced and start to care for the protagonist,world and other stuff. For this film,it seems everyone knows Snyder is amazing at capturing action and epic moments with stellar cinematography and shots. Instead of slowly building up the establishment for us to care about, the film just rushes on that part and desperately wants to get to the action and cool moments. This ultimately derails the entire story to be emotionally distant. Instead what we got is a bunch of loose threads and ideas that means something being meshed together to emptiness. Keep in mind this is not the Justice League situation,this is Snyder’s own movie.
The film’s plot is about this farmer village being enslaved by this evil empire's people and our protagonist has to find warriors to help fight against these people. The plot should be simple enough but the problem as mentioned is evermore present.
On the character side, none of them are compelling in any way. If you see one of the random villagers and the warriors,you will realise there is no difference between them. Both are one dimensional characters which never seem to matter to the plot.
The protagonist Kora, seems like an interesting character. She was a soldier for this evil empire who ran away. She no longer remembers what it was like to care for others and only knows how to run away from her problems. The evil soldier part is great but there is no foreshadowing and it just got revealed out of thin air. Her actions never seem like they were rooted from her being an ex-soldier except for her to say it out. Her entire arc never really mattered when she literally conquers it at the first act. If she really didn’t care then why save the girl. If the story wants to make her realise that she does care then she should have constant internal conflict of whether she should help others along the way then it would have been great. However we never get any of that. She barely does anything after she found the Han Solo character and went to another planet. All she has to do is say some stuff and the warriors would join her. Her character feels as empty as a random farmer in the village. Just because she fights does not mean she is compelling. There was also this farmer guy who got greedy and led the bad guys to enslave them. Now again there is a good idea but the film does nothing with it. His introduction of him selling off more grains in secret which led to the bad guys killing the mayor was fairly compelling and shows the severity of his mistake. However as the film progressed,he never did anything else besides following along the journey. He is also in love with Kora but there was no development for that at all except the bad guy saying it.
Every warrior here is a good idea. The general who hates his life,the assassin who wants to avenge her child,the guy who pets,the leader of a rebellion. All had some potential but their traits and who they are were all just said through exposition instead of showing it. There is this Han Solo character who would betray them in the end but there is no build up on this twist. He just came to them as an empty character and does something being the twist of betrayal even though we knew nothing about him.
The bad guys are just terrible. Every bad guy is bad because they did something absurdly bad. The villain however is actually the most compelling character in the film. The initial introduction shows how he would force others to do his bidding by killing someone they care about. It never mattered what use they had; he just kills as long as the job is done. This offers up some suspense from him.
The robot which the marketing made a big deal of is nothing. It does not even appear for half of the film. Anthony Hopkins narrates the opening and the voice of it but this is just him taking Odin all over again.
Every character here has a concept and interesting traits but the film messed up so much by merely stating who is the character or not doing anything with them at all.
On the worldbuilding side the film again has many cool ideas and concepts which it tries to adapt from Star Wars but the film never adds anything new to it. Farmer planet is just that. Tatooine is a desert so we are on a desert planet with a different name. Cyberpunk planet seems to have some interesting ideas but we barely stayed there. Same for Gladiator world. The climax was on yet another cyberpunk planet. Each planet never had its obstacles or twists which makes it memorable.
The concept enforced from each planet feels unique sometimes but it just feels empty due to it being added for no real reason. In the farm planet there were discussions of kingdoms or something and we even went to a bar from another village but it was no different from any other bars. Tattoine had this creature where it needed to be tamed in order for them to progress. It sounds unique from all the Sci Fi films but then you may remember Harry Potter already did this with the Hippogriff. Even the design seems similar to that. On the cyberpunk planet the assassin faced off a giant spider but how does this add up to the plot? None. It is just cool for it to be there. Gladiator planet just feels cool again so the film adds it. Every element either never had an interesting spin or was added because it seemed like a good idea. You could argue the spider was related to the assassin’s arc but where is the development on it? Most of all some of the world building like the king being assassinated and stuff were all done through exposition. These exposition scenes just feel boring because again we don’t care if it does not move anything forward.
Luckily the visuals actually save the film. Snyder’s cinematography is more sharp and pristine here. There were genuinely some beautiful shots here and there but you just have to ask yourself. Is the film made for good shots or a story? The action though actually felt unique and unlike many blockbusters today so that makes up for some of the boredom which laid in it.
Finally direction wise feels messy. Some scenes had odd takes from the actor and different accents could sometimes be heard half way through. Sometimes there was a real lack of focus as a random character could suddenly get the spotlight.
In conclusion, Rebel Moon features stellar cinematography and visuals that were never seen before but a story barely exists. Instead the whole film feels like ideas and concepts which were stitched together which ultimately meant nothing.
Final Rating:
— — — — — — — 2/5 — — — —
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