[Note: This review will discuss elements of Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver that were revealed in promotional material, such as trailers. It will also contain spoilers for Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire. If you’re someone who enjoys going into recent movies knowing as little as possible, you may want to skip reading this review.]
I’m having a hard time figuring out how a movie with a very simple premise and plenty of time to develop said premise managed to steal two hours of my life I wish I could get back.
Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver is the second half of Zack Snyder’s ambitious space Western duology. While the first film focused on Kora gathering a group of warriors from across the galaxy to defend the Moon of Veldt from the Imperium, the sequel showcases an action-packed spectacle as the team finally goes against their enemies. And that’s really all this movie is. This genuinely feels like the second half of the movie that was cut short a few months ago. It jumps right into the fray, as if the two films were meant to be watched back-to-back instead of kept months apart from one another. While there’s a short narration from Anthony Hopkins’ robot character Jimmy summarizing the first film, there’s not much in the way of easing the audience back into the story. Even though this worked for a movie like Dune: Part Two last month, for some reason, it didn’t resonate with me the same way when Rebel Moon thrust the audience back into its world. And I think I know why.
Apathy.
The first movie started strong, offering up the idea of a generic but heartfelt space adventure that would end in a battle mirroring the last act of Seven Samurai. However, halfway through that first film, things started to take a turn for the worst. The action sequences overused slow motion to the point where it felt like a waste of time. Kora’s backstory was detailed immensely, but was also left unfinished, made all the more unsatisfactory because of how little we learned about the crew she’d formed over the course of the film. And, with every crew member falling into a blender of blandness in terms of who they are and why they’re fighting the Imperium, it made the movie feel cheap and dull. The Scargiver is no different, with time spent on a variety of mundane details in the first half before spitting out cookie-cutter action sequences in the second. It actually makes me tired just trying to recall everything that happened in the second half in particular, which was just a splutter of nonsense that felt like shoddy attempts at suspense recycled for an hour. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.
The film hastily tries to patch up its mistakes from Part One, using the first hour to try and give the characters more depth. However, much of this was focused less on who the characters are as people, and more on why they’re fighting and what their physical strengths are. It felt like watching someone stroll through a sci-fi RPG and speak to the coolest-looking NPCs in the starting zone. I did not come out of this hour of unstable character development knowing the team of defenders any better than I did before. This isn’t aided by what amounts to the closest thing to character building that happens in the movie. There is a 15-minute sequence where all the characters have a round table talk the day before the big battle, explaining their backstories and why they’re fighting. Information that not only should have been in the first movie, but that feels lazily spouted off in a desperate attempt to get the audience to care about the characters before the big fight begins. It feels more like it was slapped in the middle of the movie following the realization that these characters really don’t have any character.
This is made all the more apparent during the hour-long fight scene that happens at the end of the movie. The entire thing amounts to a bunch of fire and metal, signifying nothing. This is because, in the three-and-a-half hours these two movies had to get me to care about what was going on, they failed in every respect. There are some scenes that look cool out of context. In particular, I think Jimmy stood out the most, as his inconsistent characterization coupled with his wild card status among the crew made him the most entertaining to watch. However, I didn’t feel connected to his character in the slightest, unaided by how underutilized he feels throughout most of the movie. The film’s unique design for him paints him as a mascot of sorts for the universe, but that’s all he really amounts to aside from a few cool scenes. The rest of the action is nearly forgettable, except for the many, many moments of slow-motion that turn fast-paced sequences into grinding slogs. I would also like to point out that there’s one scene where a character is fighting three enemies using melee weapons that goes into slow-motion. Said slow-mo ends up revealing how many times the hero could have easily killed their enemies, but just…didn’t. So even Snyder’s signature addition to his action scenes was working against him in this film.
It also didn’t help that, by the end of the movie, it doesn’t feel like everything established prior has been resolved. There’s very little follow-up to a few rather major side-plots established in Part One, one of which felt incredibly important to where it seemed Part Two was going. This lack of resolution for what could have been interesting character paths—especially for Kora—makes the entire experience feel dull and watered down. Even like a bridge, sometimes, to a different movie altogether. By the time the film is over, it really does feel like Netflix and Snyder are convinced this will be popular enough to warrant their plan for another four movies in this universe. But, even though it’s my job to generally keep up with movies and TV shows as they come out, I can’t see myself revisiting the Rebel Moon universe. I no longer have hope an R-rated director’s cut can save it, either, as the story would honestly benefit from tighter writing rather than an additional two hours of…whatever.
But I think the worst part about the movie is that, despite all my negative comments so far, it had plenty of potential to be something fresh and engaging. I think Snyder has a great vision for worldbuilding and genuinely had an idea for an interesting story. However, I feel like he needed more help in the storycrafting to make his vision work in the eyes of an audience. I respect him for putting this movie out there despite how much of a disaster it ended up being, as it’s clear he just wanted to make a movie he thought was going to look cool. And while it did in little drips here and there, I wish there was a more thorough vision about the movie than just needless buildup to an explosive action scene. I would have rather had generic, one-note characters fighting a generic, one-note bad guy for four hours than this. At least then I’d know something about the characters, and I could get invested because I’d know exactly what I was getting into. There is still potential in the Rebel Moon universe, but I really don’t know how it can be tapped into moving forward. Especially given how this first two-part movie turned out.
Despite initial excitement for this franchise a few months ago, I cannot recommend the Rebel Moon duology after having seen The Scargiver. A bland film that ends up underutilizing its premise, characters, and action, it wound up being a boring slog that needed a tighter, more developed script to be good. I feel like the whole package overall could have been a neat, three-hour movie if the writing had been better and there had been less use of slow-motion in a needless number of places. I have no idea how the R-rated versions are going to fare, as I’m not really planning to watch them at the moment. But maybe that will change in the future, depending on what their release schedule is like. Even though I can see potential here, I unfortunately don’t have faith in these two films spawning a franchise worth getting invested in.
It’s the first time I feel regretful saying this is the worst movie I’ve seen all year so far.
***
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