Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver is an empty feast. It’s a nonstop barrage of pyrotechnics, sci-fi cliches, and pointless exposition that amounts to nothing. Nonetheless, it outperforms the first installment of Zack Snyder’s attempted sci-fi epic trilogy for Netflix, Rebel Moon: Part 1: A Child of Fire. What do these titles actually mean? (Who cares.)
With all of the tedious table-setting done, Snyder can let his true abilities shine in Rebel Moon: Part 2, which features countless battles packed with slow-motion action and heroic stances. It looks good, but I wish it added up to anything. Anything.
Spoilers are ahead for Rebel Moon: Part 2.
If you missed the first Rebel Moon film, the fundamental plot is that Star Wars meets The Seven Samurai. Sofia Boutella plays Kora, a former elite soldier for a wicked empire who is hiding out in an all-too picturesque rural community, planting and harvesting her days away. When a squad of military villains murders the village chief and threatens a young girl, Kora goes on a murder spree (in self-defense!), leaving the town vulnerable to a reprisal attack.
She spends the first film recruiting prospective fighters to protect the hamlet, including a former gladiator (Djimoun Hounsou) and a badass swordswoman (Doona Bae). (Titus and Nemesis are their names, although they don’t matter because the characters are so thin.)
Full disclosure: I attempted to write a review for the first Rebel Moon and gave up in disgust. It was a startlingly dull epic that took me several days to finish without falling asleep. By the conclusion, I was simply left with a sense of dread, knowing that I still had two hours of Rebel Moon ahead of me.
It’s fairly meaningless praise, but at least I didn’t fall asleep during The Scargiver. This is mostly because the picture has a sense of movement and a lot more action.
Snyder is more of a stylist than a natural writer, but his images, such as a perplexing montage of our heroes picking wheat, can be almost lyrical.
Rebel Moon Part 2 is on Netflix.
It’s simply a shame I didn’t care much for the film’s characters or any of its plot. James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy captivated us with a band of misfits and screwups, with plots that directly contributed to their psychological and emotional development. Instead, the crew in Rebel Moon appear to be cardboard cutouts from better films, and the whole narrative feels forced (there is even a framework for another film near the conclusion).
Hounsou uses his eyes to convey Titus’ anguish, but he can only do so much. And, while Bae’s warrior woman oozes calm (and has a really fascinating flashback), she’s basically wasted when the action gets intense. Then there’s Jimmy, a robot voiced by Anthony Hopkins who appears briefly in the previous film and returns for a few minutes here to kick butt. Why? It does not matter. That figure is also prominent enough to serve as the narrator for both Rebel Moon films (although it appears Snyder simply wanted Hopkins’ voice to add gravity).
Ed Skrein’s portrayal of the malevolent Atticus Noble in Rebel Moon: Part 2 may be the sole actual saving point, similar to the previous film.
As a vicious villain, he’s nothing new, but Skrein’s heightened scenery chewing keeps the character entertaining to watch. Darth Vader emanates a calm feeling of dread, but Skrein’s Noble is entertainingly chaotic, a mix between the Joker and Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds. He just enjoys being bad—that’s something!
Given the success of the first picture (according to Snyder and Netflix), we may expect more Rebel Moon in the future. Snyder has previously stated that he would like to create a six-hour director’s edit of both films, and he recently told Radio Times that he would like to expand the Rebel Moon franchise to four or six films. That seems like a threat.
