/ / / warning / / / I am a sci-fi fan down to my atoms. I read, watch, listen to, and debate it. Thus, this review comes from a place of disappointment as I search for a new sci-fi classic. If you’re sensitive to critiques of your faves, read no further.
I wanted to like it. I’ve been desperately chasing more sci-fi on screen. I want epic adventure from galaxies out there, somewhere (not to be confused with “Somewhere Out There”). Give me SPACE OPERA that moves the multitudes. However, when I left the theater after Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, I said a little prayer.
It went like this: Jesus, take the reel (the movie reel) or maybe the muses could send us a script doctor to heal this mess.
Rebel Moon Part One should be good. It has all the component parts: a seasoned director, a story based on the Seven Samurai plot engine (Akira Kurosawa, 1954), gorgeous production design, a charming and ‘really really ridiculously good-looking’ cast, and several million stacks in budget. Yet, somehow, what we end up with is a patchwork of sci-fi with no real impetus of its own.
I’ll explain what I mean, the story starts on the planet Arrakis, I mean Tatooine, okay a world that looks like a desert but is abundantly fertile, despite its red-parched earth and rocky terrain. I’m not saying this isn’t possible but I am foreshadowing the lack of world-building that would usually give us a clue as to how this land yields abundant crops. The first thing I noticed—after the narrator (Anthony Hopkins) sets up a galaxy torn apart by war, betrayal, and a slain king—was the backdrops. They look like literal landscapes; painted and theatrical. Perhaps this is a love note to the golden age of Hollywood from director Zack Snyder, but it felt overdone and overly accentuated and I kept staring at them thinking: This would have worked nicely on Broadway.
The first person we meet is Kora (Sofia Boutella). She’s out in the fields alone, plowing the land with a horse-like creature that has a huge bony plate on its head. We can tell she’s strong, mentally and physically, wiry and battle-weary. We soon learn we’re in an old-world Scandinavian farming village and the work is hard but the life is good. There’s also a young blonde woman (Savanna Gann), who stands out and later becomes part of the inciting incident that fuels the coming quest.
What sets everything off is the arrival of a battleship called The King’s Gaze. Kora nearly freezes in fear because she knows this ship means destruction. It’s from a planet called The Motherworld, an imperial collective led by the tyrant Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee)—the man Kora is running from—and his enforcer Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein). The leader of the village tries to bargain but things go sideways and Kora is forced to reveal her military training. She is lethal and that is good.
However, the village has 10 weeks until The King’s Gaze returns which means Kora is going to need an army of mercenaries to fight them off. With the help of Gunner (Michiel Huisman)—the guy who fumbled the bag in the first place—Kora aims to find The Bloodaxes (Ray Fisher, Cleopatra Coleman) a sister-brother duo who leads the rebellion. But along the way she picks up a rag-tag squad of talented fighters, each with a grudge against the Motherworld (which we find out too late to matter).
That’s where the Seven Samurai trope comes in. Much like Lone Wolf and Cub, the Seven Samurai story engine rarely fails, but Rebel Moon – Part One finds a way to flop around uselessly like a goldfish transported to Arrakis. Imagine Dune but for no reason, completely without purpose. We meet each character as though Snyder is a dealer/dungeon master and this is the hand of role-playing cards we’ve been dealt. Kai (Charlie Hunnam) the thief, Nemesis (Bae Doona) the sword master, Tarak (Staz Nair) the noble indigenous prince, Titus (Djimon Hounsou) the fallen general, and Hopkins as Jimmy the Droid—each member of the ‘Band’ gets an intro scene that highlights their special skill and ends with them stating their mantra. But, why did they say yes to protecting the village, what’s going on in their lives, what are their backstories? The movie barely gives you enough thread to string together its relentless stream of massive action set pieces. Rebel Moon plays out like a digital recording of its creators’ dreams, which is mostly a bunch of “You know what would be cool” moments.
For some of you that may not sound bad, but I need storytelling, world-building, and motivation to understand my heroes and to know why I should believe in them. If given a choice, I’d rather watch cut scenes from video games. They have better, more cohesive stories and I know the time I spend watching them will pay off. With Rebel Moon, I kept wondering how many levels I’d have to defeat before I could get the full backstory on a character. I still don’t know, I had a hard time defeating eye-rolls at the dialogue and boredom.
If Rebel Moon – Part One had been made in the 80s I might’ve enjoyed it, but we’re way past that now. Or maybe we’re not that far away because you could create a Quiz Podcast out of all the references here: Seven Samurai, Krull, Clash of the Titans, Dune, Star Wars, Pitch Black 2, Gladiator, Harry Potter, John Carter, and many more. Seriously, this movie seems to rely on our knowledge of all the ‘Sci-Fi That Came Before’, as though we should be pulling from a hivemind compendium for context. What is the magic system? Shrug. Is it science-based? IDK. Who was the war with? Maybe the narrator/android said something at some point but I’ll insert another shrug here.
The best parts of this movie are: a betrayal you could only miss if you fell asleep but is still clever on the part of the betrayer; when a bunch of teeth get knocked out and go flying; and the quality of the hair styling and beard-grooming.
When asked my thoughts afterward, I said, “A pointless pile of sci-fi leftovers.” Maybe the fact Rebel Moon was pitched as a Star Wars movie but had to be flipped back to the original idea is what makes this movie such a pretty mess. I’m not sure. I do know I’m not mad, I’m disappointed.
RIOTUS 