Rebel Moon: A fanboy cult surrounds pop-fantasy director Zack Snyder. After two decades since his feature directorial debut with the grainy, unsettling 2004 reboot of “Dawn of the Dead,” Snyder has become a creative hero for the Age of Escapism with his flamboyant blend of visual wizardry, technological fixation, and kick-ass spirit.
After being raised on costly films like “300,” “Watchmen,” and “Sucker Punch,” Snyder’s highly anticipated DC comic-book world debut disappointed fans with ambitious but badly received efforts. However, the 2021 release of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League”—his original and brilliantly amazing version of the movie, which Warner Bros. had hired Joss Whedon to twist into an “audience-friendly” package—marked a new high point in Snyder cult reverence and validated its validity.
Despite calls for more “Snyder cuts,” Warner Bros. refused to reopen the archives to Snyder. Netflix—a studio streamer that has never met a director it couldn’t throw a billion dollars at—rolled out the red carpet for Snyder to make “Rebel Moon,” a four-and-a-half-hour interplanetary sci-fi action film in two parts. “Please let the film run on as long as you’d like.”
“Rebel Moon—Part One: A Child of Fire” opens in select cinemas on December 15 and hits Netflix a week later. The release date for “Rebel Moon—Part Two: The Scargiver” is April 19, 2024. Surprisingly, Netflix will soon offer extended R-rated versions of both films.
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“Rebel Moon” uses no references and is 100% original. It is based on roughly twelve pieces, though. Like “Star Wars” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Lord of the Rings” and “Black Panther,” it’s all melted down into a delectable sauce of overdone tropes with a hint of humor.
I think movies like this are lame, but “Rebel Moon” is almost cool because it parodies only the 1977 “Star Wars.” The story is about a simple rebellion against an evil empire with rubber-faced creatures and Kora (Sofia Boutella), a blend of Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Luke Skywalker.
Kora is part of an affluent medieval agricultural village in the shadow of the Motherworld on Veldt, a moon that looks like a cross between Jupiter and Saturn (the planet looms in the background like a bizarrely constructed wallpaper). After killing the Motherworld’s king and queen, cruel autocrats took over to crush the Bloodaxes.
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A Motherworld brigade under the command of the evil admiral Atticus Noble, an expert in in-person terrorism, invades after Veldt’s sincere farmers sell grain to the Bloodaxes. The movie’s most appealing aspect is British actor Ed Skrein’s fascist-with-bangs haircut. He reminds me of Rami Malek from “Cabaret,” who played Jim Carrey’s Nazi Darth Vader.
The terrible Motherworld overseer adopted Kora as a daughter when her family was slaughtered, a complicated background. After settling in Veldt, she must go to other faraway worlds to recruit rebel fighters! The film is jumbled. This one has another planet, a vibrant new member, and a nasty slow-motion conflict.
With a $166 million budget, Snyder’s extravagant staging is affordable. Some of the scenes are humorous, like Stewart Nair’s nobleman Tarak taming a huge Ray Harryhausen-esque blackbird to escape his incarceration. Sofia Boutella’s stern Kora holds the film together.
Anthony Hopkins voices Jimmy the Droid, a character like C-3PO, but with better acting; Charlie Hunnam plays the mercenary spaceship pilot Kai; and Djimon Hounsou plays the fallen but honorable General Titus. However, “Rebel Moon,” however enjoyable, has so many filler moments that only Snyder fans may watch it.
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