The Latest Netflix Release, Rebel Moon Part 1 Review
Rebel Moon Part 1 Review
It didn’t matter how many cash-laden trucks Netflix allegedly backed into Anthony Hopkins’ garage before sending him in to save the Rebel Moon at the last minute. The recent Oscar winner has done it all in the past—he even played a Transformers historian, for the love of Optimus Prime—but it’s difficult to find a project where he was used to such an inadequate degree as Zack Snyder’s most recent visual offensive offering.
Rebel Moon frequently feels like a first draft, even though Snyder isn’t particularly known for his writing. Aside from his signature visual tricks, the director’s biggest clue is probably getting one of his characters to say, “the why of.” That’s exceptionally bad, even by his standards.
The Plot:
A tranquil planet named Veldt floats somewhere in a far-off galaxy (you know how far away) where burlap-clad villagers till the soil and go about their lives as usual. The Motherworld, a fascist empire, has different plans. It sends Admiral Atticus Noble, played by Ed Skrein, to demand grain for its army. The search for a savior becomes urgent when Atticus, emulating Ralph Fiennes’s character from “Schindler’s List” (1993), shows off his bowl-cut bangs, S.S.-style uniform, and massive stick. He also threatens to return and massacre the villagers if the grain is not provided. Then comes Kora (Sofia Boutella), a shadowy outsider with a dark past, an incredibly flexible spine, and a look that veers between smoldering and pissed off. With her own motivations for seeking retribution on Motherworld, Kora sets out on a planet-hopping mission to find other rebels, joined by the kind Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), a confrontation-averse villager who regards Kora the way a dog views its supper plate.
Overall review:
The writer cinematographer Snyder, has transformed Netflix money into a determined, irregular resolute slide show of stand-alone images that struggle to cohere into a single, compelling narrative in an attempt to put a new gloss on some very old ideas. As a result, the space opera is bloated but never buoyant, with paper-thin characters and action that, when not presented in Snyder’s trademark slow motion, can be difficult to follow. Although Boutella is a charmingly lighthearted and game heroine, the film surrounding her has an oddly detached quality, like a hurried, condensed delivery system for its creator’s dorm-room fantasies.
