MOVIE REVIEW: REBEL MOON

So I finally got around to watching Rebel Moon after the holidays and I’ve come to the conclusion that Zack Snyder should not write, ever.

Generating story ideas is fine, but writing no. Funnily enough he had two other writers on this with him and their records are hit and miss, having written on good movies but also very bad ones. So it’s a toss up as to who is at fault.

Initially Sofia Boutella as Kora generates interest and empathy. She’s engaging and likable and the former dancer has the skills to pull off the action required for the role. She’s a convincing bad ass without being a Mary Sue, she takes hits, makes mistakes and has internal conflicts that need resolution. But after her fist fight scene its all downhill from there. She has the personality of a plank and honestly gets fairly stupid. Snyder’s only real success with multiple characters is Sucker Punch, and that’s saying something, or 300 which he is not the author of. There is no real development, no meaningful arcs and the bad guys are more interesting than the good guys.

The best character in the whole thing only gets a couple of minutes of screen time, that is the cgi pacifistic ex-warbot voiced by Anthony Hopkins, Jimmy, who gives the metal man all the depth and soul that the leads are lacking. Weirdly it’s the incidental characters on the Rebel Moon itself who gain the most empathy.

Sam the water girl, Den the hunter, the village leader Sindri and his wife, Hagen, Kora’s second father figure. I found myself engaging with these minor characters so much but completely unable to connect to any of the heroes of this film.

Worst of all Snyder unsuccessfully tries to do a mashup of much superior films with Seven Samurai and Star Wars being the largest influences to this work. It could have worked in more competent hands.

One thing Snyder has going for him is his visual swagger. The movie is sumptuous, it really is beautiful to look at, every frame is almost a moving piece of Frazetta art. Visuals are lush, settings look extremely cool, I like how the ships and blasters work being a bit more grounded than say Star Wars or Star Trek. But even in this aspect there is a failing. Snyder loves his slow motion WAY too much. It worked out in 300 for him the best precisely because 300 was based on a comic book. Snyder recreated many of the comic’s most iconic panels EXACTLY and those were the perfect moments to put into slow motion. A nice little love letter to fans of the comic. But this film has SO much slow motion that it was annoying! Where was the frenetic energy of Sucker Punch or Army of the Dead? It’s too bad because he does have some nice solid action in a couple of scenes that art plagued with this issue.

There is a lack of world building and overall atheistic cohesion. When you look at the first six Star Wars films for instance you can believe they all exist in the same universe. Snyder takes on a ride from planet to planet where the fundamental laws of physics don’t always apply. Same is true with the technology in the film. The weapons and ships all seem to function based on real world principles as we see weapons use some sort of explosive projectiles similar to bullets and ships have multiple thrusters. But then the bad guys can retrieve memories from brain tissue and even resurrect the dead in some homage to a bacta tank? It all gets very esoteric in the worst way, think Matrix sequels, heck the main villain is even jacked into a “Matrix” like experience.

It’s all rather sadly derivative. Snyder and company do not possess the skill Tarantino to homage the films he loves and blend them into something new and wholly his own. It’s a shame, the movie has a really talented cast of actors but they are given almost nothing to work with, the FX are impressive and the action (when not in constant slo-mo) is enjoyable. But this film has the depth of a comic book from the 60s where stuff just kinda happens and people just do what they do because this is what the plot requires. Van Helsing which was another movie that was basically an excuse to have cool stuff on screen had more emotional resonance than Rebel Moon.

2 out of 5