REBEL MOON – PART ONE: A CHILD OF FIRE (2023) review

written by: Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten
produced by: Deborah Snyder, Eric Newman, Zack Snyder & Wesley Coller
directed by: Zack Snyder
rating: PG-13 (for sequences of strong violence, sexual assault, bloody images, language, sexual material and partial nudity)
runtime: 134 min.
U.S. release date: December 15, 2023 (limited theaters) and December 22, 2023 (Netflix)

While subjecting myself to Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire”, I was reminded how baffling it is that so many people can come together to make such an utterly boring and snooze-worthy debacle of a movie. No one told Snyder and his co-writers (Kurt Johnstad, and Shay Hatten) that this copy of a copy of a copy of a screenplay is woefully bland and littered with dialogue that vacillates between awful and hilarious. That’s because he wrote it and it was co-produced by his own production company The Stone Quarry, which he founded with his wife, Deborah and their producing partner Wesley Coller, back in 2004. So, who’s going to tell him the script sucks and his gargantuan movie is a regurgitated slog? No one. Netflix funded it and here we are with the first of two chapters.

Each time Snyder releases one of his movies, his large-scale vision and trademark slo-mo style is front and center, but unless he’s remaking zombie movies (“Dawn of the Dead”) or adapting non-superhero comic book movies (“300”), it all falls flat. To date, his best work is arguably his animated owl movie from 2010 (“Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole”), but nevertheless his die-hard fans have a voracious online presence and apparently have no problem with the director delivering “more of the same” with each offering.

As for what was actually going on in this movie, I’ll admit to having to look up some details because literally no one’s name is memorable in this movie nor is their status. The overall plot is very familiar, but I’ll get to that soon.

The movie opens with tedious and confusing narration from Sir Anthony Hopkins that sounds similar to the beginning of the first Thor movie. For the life of me, I couldn’t comprehend what in the world Hopkins is going on about and, to be honest, once the movie gets going, it really doesn’t matter because it’s so easy to follow…even if the sound was off. Come to think of it, “Rebel Moon” might be better as a silent movie.

In this sci-fi universe created by Snyder and his co-writers, Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten, there is a threat called Motherworld, which is basically an empire which has reached its power through the conquest of worlds. The King (Cary Elwes) has been killed and senator Balisarius (Fra Fre) has taken control of the empire and put his right-hand, admiral Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein), in charge of their militaristic Nazi-like army called Imperium, with the goal of harvesting resources from other planets.

Noble and his brutal entourage arrive on Veldt, a moon home to an unsuspecting community of farmers, led by village chief, Sindri (an unrecognizable Corey Stoll). Noble proclaims they are searching for a band of rebels, led by sibling warriors Devra (Cleopatra Coleman) and Darrian Bloodaxe (Ray Fisher) and offer to purchase their surplus grain. When the offer is refused by Sindri, a farmer named Gunnar (Michael Huisman) chimes in, stating they actually do have enough surplus to spare. With that contradicting news, Noble immediately kills Sindri and orders Gunnar to supply them with an unreasonable amount of grain within 10 weeks or else. Noble leaves a remnant of soldiers to oversee the brigade, among them is Jimmy (voiced by Hopkins), a leftover robot from a race of mechanical knights now used for grunt labor.

Kora (Sofia Boutella, miscast and lifeless) is a seemingly simple farmer on Veldt, quietly keeping to herself while tending to her crop. But that ends when she violently breaks up an attempted gang-rape of one of the villagers by Noble’s soldiers. She warns all the villagers that Noble plans on returning and killing them all, indicating she has a past connection with the motives of the Imperium. Joined by Gunnar, Kora announces that she plans on mounting a defense against Noble and the pair set out to recruit like-minded rebels to come back and defend their homeworld. They set out to find former General Titus (Djimon Hounsou), who used to be among the Imperium to help lead their rebellion.

Like similar storylines that have come before it, the rest of “A Child of Fire” finds Kora and Gunnar going from one location to the next, much like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker. Except in this case, Gunnar clearly has a thing for Kora and as they spend more time together, we get the requisite backstory of Kora, complete with saturated flashback. Gunnar doesn’t have a chance, since Kora tells us she’s a child of war, who was “taught that love is weakness”. Yawn. It doesn’t take long to realize that every beat of Snyder’s movie is a reminder of previous storyline, ones that mostly had better acting and production values.

There’s not much to the other characters that Kora and Gunnar encounter, since they merely exist to serve formulaic stereotypes. There’s mercenary Kai (a smug and obvious Charlie Hunnam), who is hired to use his starship to recruit others. Sounds like a certain Corellian smuggler. In no time, the likes of empath Tarak (Staz Nair) and sword-wielding cyborg Nemesis (Doona Bae) are on board after they prove their worth by accomplishing their own requisite tasks that highlights their prowess. Tarak tames a giant bird creature like a scene out of Harry Potter, while Nemesis defeats a spider-like female humanoid (Jena Malone). As the quest begins, Snyder’s penchant for slo-mo action increases, as does a predictable plot and dialogue, resulting in a droll and boring viewing experience.

If you couldn’t already tell, “Rebel Moon” is an updated duplicate of “Battle Beyond the Stars”, the low-budget George Corman-produced B-movie from 1980 that tried its best to capitalize on the popularity of “Star Wars”. That space movie had a story similar to “The Magnificent Seven” which was a Western remake of Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”. In this movie, there’s even a bar scene that resembles the cantina from Tatooine, which ends in Kora and Gunnar looking for a ship to take them off-world. Sounds familiar? That’s because it is. All of it. Snyder and company are counting on no one remembering any of that, knowing his groupies will flock to whatever movie he makes.

While Snyder is relying with today’s technology, there’s really no exterior environment in “Rebel Moon” that resembles an actual place. Instead every location seems like either a green-screened sound stage or a video game segment. The actors here are simply playing characters that fit the formula of the story without any potential for nuance, but they all have various albeit suspicious accents, at least.

In between Snyder’s action sequences, there’ a load of exposition dropped, serving out banal backstories, histories, and one-note world-building. The director’s fetishistic leanings are present here as well. It’s explained that sexual activity is encouraged as a way to support agricultural fertility on Veldt. Okaay. There’s also the aforementioned gang-rape as well as bondage-style torture machines used by Noble.

Like so many of his other movies, Snyder (who also served as cinematographer) just can’t seem to get out of his own way and the result is a woefully derivative space odyssey. This first part of “Rebel Moon” left me with a newfound appreciation for ambitious sci-fi flicks such as “Jupiter Ascending” and “Valeria and the City of A Thousand Planets” and I didn’t particularly care for either of those movies. You cam imagine how curious I am about “Part Two”.

RATING: *