Having subjected myself to both of the "Rebel Moon" movies, written and directed by Zack Snyder, I'm left aghast that these movies got made. These are Snyder's tenth and eleventh films, and display all of his worst filmmaking habits - bad use of slow motion, stiff acting, dull characters, and self-serious narratives. In addition to co-writing and directing the films, he replaced longtime cinematographer Larry Fong with himself when he started working for Netflix, which did not help anything. Both "Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire" and "Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver" are terrible, and made by a filmmaker we've known makes terrible films for at least a decade.
I don't intend to spend much time here actually reviewing these two movies, because there's not much to say. "Rebel Moon"is transparently "Seven Samurai" set in a "Star Wars" style universe. Snyder reportedly even pitched it to Lucasfilm as a "Star Wars" project first, but the focus on original characters put them off. Snyder then took the project to Netflix, where it was split up into two parts. The split was totally unnecessary, but because Snyder didn't want to cut anything, the climactic third act was turned into its own feature. In the end it took Snyder over four hours and $166 million to tell the same story that it took Roger Corman, Jimmy Murakami, and John Sayles 105 minutes to tell in 1980 with a fraction of the budget, in "Battle Beyond the Stars." And Snyder's version is worse.
It's hard to stomach how much worse it really is. The actors are decent, and the production design and effects work manage to create a reasonable facsimile of a sector of the "Star Wars" galaxy we haven't stumbled across yet. However, the storytelling choices and the internal logic of the characters and their actions is incredibly poor. The tone is somber and humorless, exposition and backstory are shoehorned in willy-nilly, and every time an interesting character shows up, they're almost immediately sent off to do something else. The leads played by Sofia Boutella and Michael Huisman are painfully bland, angst-ridden, and pretty miserable to watch. There are some spiffy images, and a few good action beats, but too much is undercut by the crummy cinematography and leaden pacing. There's a lot of ambition and vision here, and an utter lack of ability to execute it.
Zack Snyder really has one of the most fascinating directorial careers. He's made two good zombie films. He's made some decent films based on comic books, including the one that kicked off the DCEU. He got an unlikely boost in visibility and goodwill when he was allowed to make the "Snyder Cut" of the troubled "Justice League" movie that he originally had to abandon mid-production due to a family tragedy. Of course the "Snyder Cut" was better than the theatrical version of "Justice League," because it couldn't have gotten any worse. Zack Snyder is also responsible for some truly terrible movies, including both versions of "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice," and his first wholly original feature, "Sucker Punch," which I had the misfortune of seeing in theaters back in 2011. The more control and input Snyder has on his features, the worse they tend to come out.
That doesn't seem to phase Snyder, however. He's already announced his intentions to turn "Rebel Moon" into a franchise, with plans for four more films. He's also hoping to release R-rated versions of the two existing films, though I can't imagine that there's any demand for them. Snyder sounds an awful lot like "Kingsman" director Matthew Vaughn earlier this year, when he was promoting his action film "Argylle." Vaughn was also trying to kick off a big franchise, with lots of plans for "Argylle" sequels and crossovers, but the movie was a bust. I have no reason to believe that either "Argylle" or "Rebel Moon" were negatively affected by expectations to turn them into franchises, but I do question why either of these directors, with their very mixed track records, were put in a position to make such wretched attempts.
The "Rebel Moon" movies are only the latest of Netflix's sorry collection of disposable action films, along with "Red Notice," "The Gray Man," and "6 Underground," which tend to feature big names and deliver very little actual entertainment. Zack Snyder is responsible for creating "Rebel Moon," but Netflix paid for its creation, so I hold them equally guilty. Whatever algorithmic nonsense gets films greenlit over there these days, it's clearly gone very wrong, enabling movies that are so incompetent, it almost defies belief. We don't have very good viewing figures for Netflix, but clearly "Rebel Moon" has made less of a cultural splash than they were hoping for.
If a third rate nobody blogger like me could tell you that "Rebel Moon" was a terrible bet from the outset, why couldn't Netflix figure it out?
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