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Rebel Moon Review: Zack Snyder's Fractured and Clichéd New Universe

Rebel Moon is what happens when someone is handed unlimited money and complete creative freedom without having anyone around them who is willing to tell them "no."

When director Zack Snyder was presented with a blank check from one of the biggest streamers in the business and creative freedom, he released Rebel Moon, a film without an original moment in its body to the point that it would be funny if it didn't take itself so incredibly seriously.

Director: Zack Snyder
Summary: When a peaceful settlement on the edge of a distant moon finds itself threatened by the armies of a tyrannical ruling force, a mysterious stranger living among its villagers becomes their best hope for survival.

Snyder lives the life many creatives would cut off a limb for. The partnership he appears to have with Netflix is the kind that directors spend entire careers hoping they might someday get a fraction of attaining. Someone is giving you whatever resources you need to make your vision a reality, and you don't need to force it into some recognizable IP. You're able to explore original worlds and concepts. It's hard to say how rare it is for someone to be in the position that Snyder is currently in regarding not only Rebel Moon but his Army of the Dead films as well. No one appears to be telling him "no" or reigning him in; he has access to anything, so what he has put on screen with Rebel Moon is everything because that's what it is. This film was made under the ideal circumstances for any filmmaker.

This is why it is painfully ironic that Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire doesn't have an original bone in its body. When presented with the opportunity to do anything, Snyder decided that copying everyone else's homework in terms of storytelling, character beats, character arcs and even the look of the world was the way to go. There is not a single moment in this film that feels original or fresh. This isn't familiar places with a fresh coat of paint; this is just the same repurposed tropes with some slow motion and decent cinematography, and that's about it. You know these stories because you have seen them before; you know where all of this is going, and Snyder has given zero indication that he will be subverting anything in future installments because the tone of this could not be more serious. There is not a single moment of levity in this entire film, no joy, because, apparently, the only way to be dark is to be joyless.

All of this is bad enough and would kneecap any film, but Rebel Moon also has to contend with the fact that it is half a movie and all of the challenges that come with that. When you are half a movie, you are, by design, working under a handicap because you have to make up for the fact that you're not giving your audience a satisfying ending. You have to make up for the fact that most of your film will be set up, worldbuilding, and exposition. You need to excel in everything else to make up for those facts, and Rebel Moon does none of that. It expects you to be fine with 85% worldbuilding, a long, drawn-out backstory, explanations of flashbacks, and gathering of the allies while doing nothing else of interest. As previously stated, nothing is new here; we have seen it all before, and now we see it with the added baggage of not even being a completed movie.

Then, there is the issue surrounding the director's cut. Snyder has been nearly bragging that this director's cut will be very different from the first version of the film, as if that is somehow a good thing. This was not dictated by a studio that took a movie and cut it up so it didn't even resemble the original version [see Kingdom of Heaven]; this appears to be something that Snyder wanted to do the entire time. However, suppose this movie is everything, which it very much seems to be because everything is up on screen, and Snyder had the opportunity to do everything. Why is it, under those circumstances, he still couldn't find a consistent throughline for this film? Why are we staring down the barrel of four films [Rebel Moon 1, Rebel Moon 1 – Directors Cut, Rebel Moon 2, Rebel Moon 2 – Directors Cut]? Why was everyone making this film so unsure about where they wanted it to go that they had to make two versions and somehow think that it was something worth bragging about? Director's cuts are not a bad thing, but when that hour of footage changes things to the point that the director himself is saying, "It's almost like a different movie. It's almost a different universe that [the R-rated cut] lives in than this movie," you're left wondering why no one could come up with a definitive direction for this movie that two were necessary.

The impressive cast of this film is doing their best with what they are given, but it's hard to become invested in any of these characters when you can see where they are heading five minutes after meeting them. There are several major deaths at the end of the film, and a "twist" that was initially teased as a cliffhanger that you could have called five minutes after meeting the respective people involved. It's almost impressive how unoriginal all of this is, to the point that they somehow got an unoriginal-sounding score out of Tom Holkenborg. The best part of the film is the cinematography, but Snyder has always made pretty pretty-looking movies in terms of that, so it would be weird to expect anything less from him at this point.

Rebel Moon is what happens when someone is handed unlimited money and complete creative freedom without having anyone around them who is willing to tell them "no." Snyder can make good films, but in the last decade, after the cult of fans began to surround him, it's clear he has started to believe the hype and "do no wrong" mentality. The only people who think two radically different cuts of the same film is a good idea are the creative way too in love with their own lore and a studio executive who sees it as the opportunity to release a movie twice. This is the foundation that Snyder and his team are building not only a second film on but a new cinematic universe, and much like his version of the DC Universe, it is a fundamentally broken foundation right out of the gate. This weekend, we are witnessing the end of the Snyder era of the DC Universe and how it all fell apart because of that broken foundation while also seeing history repeat itself all over again on Netflix. Unlike Justice League, there is no time to course correct Part Two of Rebel Moon, so this is what they have: a copy of a copy of every science fiction story and Seventh Samurai adaptation that we have seen and nothing more.

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire

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Review by Kaitlyn Booth

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3/10

When director Zack Snyder was presented with a blank check from one of the biggest streamers in the business and creative freedom, he released Rebel Moon, a film without an original movie in its body to the point that it would be funny if it didn't take itself so incredibly seriously.

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