‘Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire’ Movie Review: Two-Thirds Underwhelming Sci-Fi Mashup, One-Third Pleasing Action Feature
Photo from Netflix
From Joe Peltzer
Born out of the ashes of a failed Star Wars pitch, Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire seems comfortable living in its infinite shadow. Grossly underdeveloped characters and a familiar plot (the old “a bunch of misfits come together to take down the looming evil power” trope), Zack Snyder’s latest brainchild leaves you wanting more.
The film finds Kora (Sofia Boutella) living a secluded life in a peaceful colony when Admiral Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) arrives on behalf of the Imperium and threatens the collective future of the villagers. Kora takes off with Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) to recruit a group of fighters to take down the looming threat. What’s abundantly clear from the outset is that Snyder has a lot of grandiose ideas for the story at the heart of Rebel Moon. We are introduced to beautiful, unique locations and a vast array of characters including humans and aliens. It’s all a bit overwhelming as Anthony Hopkins sets up the film in the first minutes and then we’re off to meet the plethora of individuals. Each are thinly written, with the exception of Kora, each introduced with short backstories that fail to hook the audience into caring about these new insurgents, especially Kora. As the film rolls along, more of her history is revealed, but it’s Boutella’s emotionless portrayal that leaves more to be desired. I know we’ve been told that these aren’t heroes in the marketing, but we need someone to cheer for.
The first two acts are frustratingly dull, the team introduced one-by-one as they each have their own little side quest that we endure until we move on (sans transitions). The enslaved Tarak (Staz Nair) must calm a Buckbeak-looking creature in an Avatar callback while Nemsis (Doona Bae) must wield her superheated swords to take down an human-arachnid hybrid. Both tasks have do nothing to propel the story, much like when we find General Titus (Djimon Honsou) at a gladiator arena just drunk and dirty. The best of the crew is Charlie Hunnam’s Kai, a pilot and smuggler (oh hey, Han Solo) who gets has some delicious one-liners and just an overall presence as the adult in the room with this rogue group. He’s a bit suspicious, but that will play out. Then you add in Ray Fisher’s Darrian Bloodaxe who Noble is after (along with Darrian’s sister) for leading the insurgency and you get all of the gears turning. Fisher is on screen for maybe fifteen minutes; I would have loved to have seen more.
The third act is where Rebel Moon really takes off with the stakes extremely high and the action mesmerizingly intense. The weapons, the visuals, the choreography… it all is peak Snyder and had me giddy in my seat. It makes me excited to see what is to come with the R-rated cut, which promises to be brutal (and probably should have been the only version released). This is where the film displays the promise that the series had from the outset and does successfully hook me for part two. It’s simply a shame that it took so long to get to the interesting stuff; if the interest is waning in each of the characters as they’re introduced, how am I to be invested enough to root for them later on? I found myself rooting for the bad guys and that probably wasn’t the intention! Skrein is the standout of the cast, his villainous demeanor always on point and keeping you guessing.
Visually Rebel Moon takes you on a ride, Snyder’s style permeating every inch of the film. It’s not perfect, mind you… there are certain set pieces that felt cheap and the physical was poorly interwoven with the CGI. Some of the camerawork is also perplexing with the focus being on the very center of the screen and everything surrounding it being blurry (this was the talk of the crowd after). Still, Rebel Moon transports you to distant planets and neat ships, you meet neat characters (in a tavern setting, which probably could have been nixed to avoid the obvious comparisons), and there are hints at a very interesting world within the film. It all is simply underdeveloped; the characters are thin, the background regarding kings and battles is riddled with holes and raise more questions than answers, and there are odd droplets of story that will likely be revisited in the future involving the Hopkins-voiced robot, a magical princess, religious-looking beings accompanying Skrein, and more. The ending, while incredibly intriguing, is also a head-scratcher. Thankfully the beautiful score is there to fall back on when what is on screen either bores you or confuses you.
As a Snyder fan, I am always excited to see what he will put on screen, especially when it is an original idea. Rebel Moon, however, shares too much DNA with better sci-fi films of the past (Star Wars, Star Trek, and sadly Battlefield Earth) that it struggles to stand on its own, trying to be too much all at once and losing focus of the story it is trying to tell. Visuals can only get you so far, but without characters the audience should care about, Rebel Moon misses the mark.
Rating: 2/5
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire streams on Netflix starting December 21st, 2023.
