Cindy Prascik's Review of Rebel Moon: A Child of Fire

My dear reader(s): Over the Christmas break, my plan was to catch up with some movies.

First on my holiday docket: Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon.

Spoiler level here will be mild, nothing you wouldn't know from the trailers, except the exact second when Charlie Hunnam turns up.

Rebels rise up against an evil space empire. (No, not *those* rebels or *that* space empire.)

Out of the gate, I want to offer a couple disclaimers: First, though I've kicked science fiction fantasy to the curb almost entirely, I like Zack Snyder and I hoped/expected to like this. Secondly, Netflix has some super algorithms, because the Rebel Moon picture on my home page is all Charlie Hunnam, though he doesn't appear until 51:05 and enjoys only sporadic screen time after. Well played, Netflix. Well played.

While almost any story bears traces of tales that came before it, Rebel Moon is nothing but derivative, Star Wars with a Mad-Maxey vibe...if Star Wars and Mad Max somehow managed to become the most boring movies ever made. I fell asleep three times in the first hour and had to keep rolling it back so I didn't "miss" anything.

The acting seems almost universally awful, but the dialogue is so badly written it's difficult to pin blame. The cast is full of well-known faces, most of whom are generally at least decent, so it's possible Meryl Streep couldn't have done anything with this material. Charlie's is a cheeky role that's particularly well suited to him, so he fares better than most. Nice visuals are marred by the odd bad green screen moment. Fight sequences are dull, awkward, and painfully fake-looking. The story, so often (better) told before, doesn't begin to earn its two-hours-plus runtime. A disappointment all 'round.

Rebel Moon clocks in at 133 minutes and is rated PG13 for "sequences of strong violence, sexual assault, bloody images, language, sexual material, and partial nudity."

The fact that Rebel Moon, part two, is coming next year feels more like a threat than a promise. Of a possible nine Weasleys, Rebel Moon gets three.

Rebel Moon is now streaming on Netflix.

Until next time...

MOVIE REVIEW: REBEL MOON PART ONE: A CHILD OF FIRE

 

When a colony on the edge of the galaxy finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius, they dispatch a young woman with a mysterious past to seek out warriors from neighbouring planets to help them take a stand.

Director: Zack Snyder

Cast: Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, Charlie Hunnam, Anthony Hopkins

Release Date: December 15, 2023

Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, sexual assault, bloody images, language, sexual material and partial nudity.

Runtime: 2h 13m

Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire is a lifeless space epic that never truly finds its footing as it mines bits and pieces of Star Wars by way of Seven Samurai while bringing nothing new to the table.  All of Snyder's visual bravado and his unrelenting love of slow motion is still here but it all feels perfunctory and overdone paired with a rather listless, all too familiar story.  Characterization is at minimal as the story journey's to collection a ragtag crew of rebels whom we have little to no emotional connection to as we move from introductory set piece to another.  It would be easier to ignore some of these story issues if the action was fun or interesting.  There's a surprisingly blandness to the action which is something you wouldn't expect from Snyder with Bae Doona's Nemesis battle with a spider woman being the only one that registers as any sort of tangible fun.  Likewise the performances are all rather lifeless with Sofia Boutella's lead character barely registering as determined and driven much less inspiring.  Anthony Hopkins voicework for the robot introduced in the first act and offers a small tinge of life but he quickly disappears from the story only to reappear at the very without another line of dialogue.   It doesn't help matters that the entire film serves as nothing more than set up for the second part which would be fine if there were some time invested in character development and world building.  Sadly, this first entry feels more like a Sucker Punch level misfire from Snyder which feels like a major step back for him as a storyteller.  
 

D