Part 2 of Rebel Moon: The Scargiver is a barren feast. It’s an endless barrage of pyrotechnics, cliches from science fiction, and pointless exposition. And yet, in some ways, it’s still superior to Rebel Moon: Part 1-A Child of Fire, the first movie in Zack Snyder’s proposed sci-fi epic series for Netflix. (What is the true meaning of these titles? Who gives a damn.)
After completing all of the tedious table-setting, Snyder is free to showcase his actual abilities in Rebel Moon: Part 2, which are ceaseless conflicts full of heroic gestures and slow-motion action. Though I wish it added up to something, it looks amazing. Anything at all.
In case you happened to miss the first Rebel Moon movie, the plot basically combines elements from Star Wars with The Seven Samurai. In the film, Sofia Boutella plays Kora, a former elite soldier of a sinister empire who is currently hiding in an all-too-perfect farming town while she spends her days planting and harvesting. Kora goes on a killing rampage (in defense!) after a gang of military goons assassinate the village head and begins terrorizing a young girl, leaving the neighborhood vulnerable to a counterattack.
She devotes the early part of the film on enlisting possible fighters to protect the hamlet, such as a fierce swordswoman (Doona Bae) and a fallen gladiator (Djimoun Hounsou). (Titus and Nemesis, respectively, are their names, however that isn’t really important considering the characters are paper thin.
To be quite honest, I attempted to write a review for the first Rebel Moon but gave up out of disgust. I had to watch it for several days without falling asleep because it was a really boring epic. I was left with nothing except a sense of dread at the conclusion because I still had two hours of Rebel Moon left.
I know it’s a bit of hollow praise, but at least The Scargiver kept me awake. That’s mostly because there is a lot more action and the movie has a real sense of movement. Like in Snyder’s Sucker Punch, Justice League, and Watchmen adaptations, you may turn off your head and enjoy the lovely graphics. Though Snyder is more of a stylist than a natural writer, there are moments when his images, like a perplexing montage of our heroes harvesting wheat, are quite poetry.
It’s unfortunate that I found the movie’s characters and plot to be so uninteresting. The Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy by James Gunn introduced us to a group of misfits and screwups whose stories inevitably lead to their emotional and personal development. In contrast, Rebel Moon’s cast feels like cardboard cutouts from better films, and the entire plot (which by the end even sets up a sequel) seems contrived.
Hounsou does his best to convey Titus’s sorrow through his eyes, but he is limited in his ability. Additionally, although though Bae’s warrior woman is incredibly fascinating and has an interesting flashback, she is largely wasted when the battle becomes really intense. Then there’s Jimmy, an Anthony Hopkins-voiced robot who made a brief appearance in the first movie and reappears again for a few minutes to kick butt. Why? That is unimportant. That character is also, for some reason, significant enough to narrate the two Rebel Moon movies (though, in all honesty, it seems Snyder was merely looking for Hopkins’ voice to lend gravity).
Ed Skrein’s portrayal of the evil Atticus Noble in Rebel Moon: Part 2 may be the only true saving point, similar to the first movie. He’s basically nothing special as a vicious villain, but Skrein’s exaggerated chomping of scenery adds a fascinating element to the role. Skrein’s Noble is amusingly chaotic, akin to the Joker mixed with Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds, in contrast to Darth Vader, who emanates a serene feeling of dread. It’s not bad that he enjoys being bad so much!