Highlights
- Rebel Moon lacks originality, relying on borrowed ideas from other films and failing to offer anything new or creative.
- The film suffers from a lack of focus, with too many characters and a rushed plot that doesn't allow for proper development.
- Despite Snyder's signature style, the movie falls flat with unmemorable characters, underwhelming visuals, and a generally boring experience.
Rebel Moon is the new film by Zack Snyder, a director who has established a fan base with his adaptations of popular comics and his heavily stylized, masculine re-workings of various popular IP. He's had varying success in the superhero industry, developing a cult following but dividing fans with his depiction of DC characters. Synder's Man of Steel re-imagined Superman as a cold, brooding alien, in contrast to the bright, optimistic man in blue and a red cape he was known for, in a movie which still divides fans.
Rebel Moon, on the other hand, is an original project by Zack Snyder. While many of his fans eagerly awaited its release, the signature style that Snyder is known for may be his own undoing here.
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Style Over Substance
Snyder has always been a visual filmmaker. His DC films weren't so much focused on the story, but rather how they re-imagined all of these popular DC characters. This led to a rocky road for the DCEU, who were intending to copy the MCU's success. With Snyder at the helm, they received a lukewarm fan and critic response. Some people loved his dark, edgy style, and some found it to be useless without a great story anchoring it all down. This reason Snyder left DC and has since gone to work for Netflix.
Snyder's 2011 film Sucker Punch, his first project not based on existing IP, was an amalgamation of all of his visual tropes, and was poorly received by critics and audiences. It was described as a mostly empty story with flashy cinematography, filler covers of popular songs, and female characters who are reduced to punching bags by the male protagonists. Needless to say, Snyder didn't get off to a good start when it came to original concepts.
However, Snyder's name has grown considerably larger in the past decade, especially with the Superhero Boom and the release of his Four Hour Plus Director's Cut of Justice League. Now that Synder is no longer a part of DC, Netflix has given the controversial director seemingly unlimited funds and an even wider sandbox to play in.
It's interesting how, without the apparent confines of the studio system, Snyder has still managed to churn out a hollow movie that mostly feels like a remix of popular films. Snyder openly admitted that the film was re-tweaked from a failed pitch to LucasFilm as another entry in the Star Wars series. It's very clear from watching Rebel Moon that ideas have been lifted from Akira Kurosowa's The Hidden Fortress and Seven Samurai, which in turn inspired Star Wars, which itself was inspired by Dune. It appears Rebel Moon rips off all of these with its world building.
What is Rebel Moon about?
In Rebel Moon, The Mother-World sends its military, the Imperium, to threaten a farming colony on the moon Veldt and expunge it of its resources. A former soldier of the Imperium named Kora (Sofia Boutella) embarks on a quest across the galaxy to recruit rebel warriors. Together, they plan to face the Imperium before they return to Veldt.
This feels like a mix of popular sci-fi tropes, with Kora standing in for Luke Skywalker, Paul Atreidies and even Ney'Tiri from Avatar. However, Snyder's film doesn't do anything new or creative with these tropes. Rebel Moon is stunningly less captivating than all of those movies, with unmemorable characters and underwhelming sets and costume design. What's amazing is how cheap it all looks, buried under a dark smoggy green screen. Fights are rendered in slow-motion (even more than usual for Snyder) and there's an overall rushed nature to the story. With this clumsy pacing, it's hard to take interest in all of these new characters.
What is Rebel Moon's Rotten Tomatoes Score?
Rebel Moon debuted with a 9% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, which eventually rose to a 23% as the film expanded its limited theatrical release in theaters in New York and Los Angeles. It's fair to say that reception has been overwhelmingly negative. Still, many note that critics' scores are not often a reflection of the majority. Critics have had their say, but the jury's still out on what audiences might think.
A lot of die-hard Snyder fans want to believe he can create an original universe. His Army of the Dead was a pulpy, violent, and exciting. It was excessive in style with a balance of comedy, action, a clever merging of the heist and zombie genres and a pretty strong character dynamic, and debuted at a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes. But it doesn't seem as if there is much love for Rebel Moon, simply because it's quite boring.
A Boring Blockbuster
Rebel Moon opens with a long monologue by Anthony Hopkin's disembodied voice, explaining to the audience how the MotherWorld and Imperium Soldiers have seized control of the Galaxy, and it builds its world from there. All this is in the first minute after the dropping of the Netflix logo, and viewers are plunged into this world without much ease or cinematic adjustment. From there, it jumps from character to character and set piece to set piece without the connective tissue one might get from Denis Villeneuve or even George Lucas.
Dune, for example, opened with narration from Chani to establish the world, but then provided various perspectives on this universe. Viewers got to soak in the sea-side city of Caladan, then gradually move towards the Harkonnen Planet, and eventually the Desert World of Arakkis. And it's all gradually paced. Rebel Moon is like a music video, dumping exposition while quickly cutting to show all the aspects of this world. It never lets the audience settle in, while reveling in the dimly green-screen and cheaply expensive-looking CG. Nothing feels tactile. Nothing feels like there's any weight to it. No movie should start and feel rushed, or need so much explaining to bring viewers up to speed. After all, this is the first of an intended trilogy.
A Lack of Focus
One of the biggest problems is there are no fascinating protagonists in Rebel Moon. The movie is always trying to find a focal point, but there are too many characters, and any development is skipped in favor of rushing the plot ahead. The film never settles on one character to anchor the heart of the story, and instead opts to rush ahead with this 'unlikely band of heroes' with seemingly AI generated names like Doona Bae's "Nemesis" or Ray Fisher's "Darrian Bloodaxe." A character's name doesn't immediately make or break a film, but with bland heroes, it just makes it harder for an audience to care about them.
How Rebel Moon Can Fix Itself
If Snyder wants to continue to build his Rebel Moon Universe, a sequel is already shot and set to be released next year, he'll need to work on developing his world and characters with less of a focus on style over making a unique and engaging story. A Director's Cut for Rebel Moon is already in the works-so maybe we can expect more plot development - or more prolonged sequences of slow-motion fighting and bloodshed.
Rebel Moon is now playing in select theaters and will be streaming on Netflix December 21 at 7PM ET. A sequel, Rebel Moon: The Scargiver, is also set to be released on the streaming service in April 2024.
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