Zack Snyder is a pop-fantasy filmmaker who now has a fanboy cult round him. In the 20 years since he made his characteristic directorial debut with the grainy unsettling 2004 reboot of “Dawn of the Dead,” Snyder’s flamboyant fusion of visible wizardry, technological fixation, and kick-ass spirit has made him, not less than in some quarters (learn: the Comic-Con and video-game demo), a inventive hero for the Age of Escapism. Fans who grew up feasting on such Snyder extravaganzas as “300,” “Watchmen,” and “Sucker Punch” then noticed his much-ballyhooed entrée into the DC comic-book sphere marked by formidable however maligned misfires. Yet in 2021, the discharge of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” — his uncut and fairly extraordinary model of the film that Warner Bros. had tapped Joss Whedon to mangle into an “audience-friendly” product — was a vindication that additionally marked a brand new peak of reverence for the Snyder cult.
Despite cries for different “Snyder cuts,” Warner Bros. wasn’t about to let a big-money maverick like Snyder again into the vaults. But Netflix, a studio streamer that by no means met a director it couldn’t throw a zillion {dollars} at, together with the phrases “Please let the film run on as long as you’d like,” rolled out the purple carpet for Snyder to make “Rebel Moon,” a four-and-a-half-hour interplanetary sci-fi motion spectacular that’s being launched in two components. “Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire” shall be given a restricted theatrical run beginning Dec. 15, earlier than it drops on Netflix one week later. “Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver” is about to be launched on April 19, 2024. (And — shock! — longer R-rated variations of each movies shall be out there to stream on Netflix at a later date.)
“Rebel Moon” isn’t primarily based on something; it’s an entire authentic. Yet in one other sense it’s primarily based on about twelve issues. It’s “Stars Wars” meets “Guardians of the Galaxy” meets “The Lord of the Rings” meets “Black Panther,” all smelted down and decreased to a extremely edible sauce of overfamiliar tropes, minus any semblance of a humorousness. Movies this spinoff, in my opinion, are inherently uncool, however you might argue that what’s virtually cool about “Rebel Moon” is that it’s so unabashedly a gloss on solely the 1977 “Star Wars.” It’s received a really fundamental rebels-vs.-the-evil-empire plot, with rubber-faced creatures and a noble stoked-with-moxie Zen fighter heroine, Kora (Sofia Boutella), who’s like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia all rolled into one.
The story begins on Veldt, a moon of Saturn (the planet looms within the background like a weirdly synthetic piece of wallpaper), the place Kora is a part of a hearty neighborhood of medieval farmers who dwell within the shadow of the Motherworld. The Motherworld’s king and queen have been assassinated and changed by vicious autocrats, who need to crush the pocket of insurgents generally known as the Bloodaxes. The good farmers of Veldt have bought a few of their grain to the Bloodaxes, and early on they’re invaded by a Motherworld brigade led by Atticus Noble, an evil admiral who makes a speciality of face-to-face terrorism. The British actor Ed Skrein, in his fascist-with-bangs haircut, is the perfect factor within the film. He’s like Rami Malek enjoying Jim Carrey as Darth Vader as a Nazi out of “Cabaret.”
Kora has a thorny and fairly turgid backstory (after her household was killed, she was adopted as a daughter by the Motherworld’s ominous overseer). But now, as a resident of Veldt, it’s as much as her to journey to distant planets — an important lots of them — to assemble up…a fellowship of insurgent fighters! The film is episodic within the excessive. Here’s one other planet, right here’s one other Colorful Character to recruit for the workforce, right here’s one other slow-mo interlude of ultraviolent fight.
Snyder, who shot the movie himself, phases it on an impressively lavish scale (all of the CGI sprawl a price range of $166 million should buy), and a handful of the episodes are enjoyable, like one the place the noble hunk Tarak (Staz Nair) frees himself from indentured servitude by harnassing a large blackbird who’s like a Ray Harryhausen creature. Sofia Boutella, as Kora, holds the movie collectively along with her dour ferocity, and Djimon Hounsou (because the fallen however nonetheless noble General Titus), Charlie Hunnam (because the mercenary starship pilot Kai), and Anthony Hopkins (because the voice of Jimmy the droid, who’s like C-3PO with extra appearing expertise) make their presence felt. Yet “Rebel Moon,” whereas eminently watchable, is a film constructed so solely out of spare components that it could, in the long run, be for Snyder cultists solely.