Zack Snyder’s latest Netflix flick sets up an incredible sci-fi universe, but fails to do anything interesting within it, writes Dean Walker.
Director Zack Snyder isn’t afraid to talk about how Star Wars inspired his new movie – in fact, at the UK premiere, when asked how long this idea has been on his mind, he said he had been developing it since the original release of Star Wars in 1977.
Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire is Netflix’s most expensive movie ever, and you can tell. The worlds are vast and beautiful, but when considering the lacklustre plot, it seems impossible that Zack Snyder has been toying with this for 45 years.
Rebel Moon follows Kora (Sofia Boutella), an ex-bad-guy turned rebel, and her plight to save a small town from a current-bad-guy (Ed Skrein). Rebel Moon introduces a large universe but spends too much of its time setting up part two.
At the premiere, Snyder admitted “I hate ensemble movies, but I keep making them.” – the hate for ensemble films would be completely understandable if they were all like this. This film is an ensemble as far as it has a large cast – it’s not like anyone beyond three, maybe four characters actually do anything.
And that is Rebel Moon’s biggest flaw. The entire film focuses on the lead recruiting a team, but the second you become a member of the team, you get relegated to a background character. You don’t get to grow or develop, you don’t get any more moments in the spotlight, and you don’t even get to bond with other teammates. You just have to sit there and wait for the big fight at the end.
This is especially disappointing because of how stacked this ‘ensemble’ cast is. Ray Fisher, Djimon Honsou, Bae Doona, Corey Stoll and even Sir Anthony Hopkins are given nothing to do. Charlie Hunnam at least has a scene or two where he really does get to sell his character in a fun way, and the villain portrayed by Ed Skrein also really gets to chew some scenery.
There are such vast swipes of world building here, and some of it really works while other parts are underwhelming and confusing. Overall though, this setting works and will be interesting moving forward into Part Two and beyond. Snyder described this film as ‘universe building’ and not world building, and to an extent, that is true, considering the scale of it all.
The film does look great, and it has some visceral and fun action scenes, but when these build towards nothing and are filled by hollow characters, it just doesn’t work.
Rebel Moon is available on Netflix.
