Movie Review : Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire (2023)
* This review contains spoilers, but I highly suggest you read it anyway *
I don't know how Zack Snyder does it.
Each time I swear off his movies, two or three years go by until I work myself into a context where I'd be a dick if I didn't sit down for two hours and watch his latest turd, so I tell myself: "Man, how bad can it be? He can't be as bad as I remember", but he always is. That motherfucker is the Michael Jordan of making unenjoyable movies. Every time I think I figured him out, he invents new ways to waste my time and none of his fucking movies wasted my time more epically than the first part of his new space opera thing Rebel Moon.
Rebel Moon (at least Part One: A Child of Fire) is about a destitute super soldier named Kora (the otherwise talented Sofia Boutella) who deserted the Imperium, an intergalactic EMPIRE (I shit you know, it's exactly what you think it is) in order to live a simpler life as a farmer on a Tatooine-like planet with harsh weather conditions and not having to worry about the world going to shit. When she realizes the space nazis are always gonna be after her, she embarks a simple peasant AND A SPACE SMUGGLER into a REBELLION.
I shit you not. I have no idea how it got through Disney's lawyers.
The Part That's Really Like Star Wars, But Worse
This movie is really bad. Not bad in a "Chad likes it when movie goes PEW! PEW!" bad. It'd be fun it it was a clever Star Wars ripoff, but it's not. I don't think it's all that self-aware about being a ripoff. It gets pretty close at times. I mean, getting into a bar on a wasteland-like planet and get a hold of a SPACE SMUGGLER (played by good looking mid-carter Charlie Hunnam) would've been a great "wink wink" moment if they didn't move on right away to a "tamer of beasts" who looks suspiciously like a hairless, tattooless Khal Drogo.
At some point, I was wondering whether ChatGPT had plundered old scripts for that shit. But it would be fun if the writing was clever, wouldn't it? But it's not.
Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire (was a corny-ass title) is so busy trying to get you somewhere it hasn't told you about yet that it spends its first two hours and fifteen minutes racing through a shitload of exposition and needless, confusing character backstories without much happening at all. You get the whole crash course on Kora's past life as a super soldier about forty-five minutes into Rebel Moon, ruining the best thing about her character: mystery. You do not grow into her, she is spoon fed to you right away.
There's also the useless farmer (Michiel Huisman) who's character exists solely in order to deliver the warriors the only time they get themselves into trouble for about five minutes. The drunk army general (Djimon Hounsou) who showers off years of misery and walks into a rebellion after a five minutes conversation. The robotic bad guy (Ed Skrein) who gets pieced back together (I SHIT YOU NOT) in thirty seconds at the end of the movie, a Hunger Games-like final boss. Nothing in this movie is fun, engaging or original.
The Other Part That’s No Fun At All
On top of being ludicrously derivate, Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire is also quite insecure. Zack Snyder had to dress his bad guy as a literal space nazi in order to make sure that we comprehend that he is the bad guy. Even better, all the soldiers of the Imperium in that movie had the same haircut as WWE superstar Gunther. None of the heroes have any character flaws except the guy who was a traitor all along. None of the villains have redeeming traits worth talking about. Just to make sure you understand who’s who.
I can’t say this movie is dumb, but Rebel Moon clearly believes that you are. I remember watching an interview with an actor on Batman V. Superman claiming that Zack Snyder was just a big kid having fun with fight choreographies and exploding set pieces. That was like seven years ago and no one figured that he was the only one having fun making these movies. That his movies are CGI'ed pieces of shit he cranks out for content mills like Netflix that don't get about the quality of what they put out.
Because they know you'll watch anyway.
*
According to IMDB, Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire cost 90 millions to make. You could say that for a lot of movies, but the world would CLEARLY be a better place if Netflix decided to give that money to a charity program. The world would be a better place if someone told Zack Snyder "no" and "go fuck yourself with your stupid-ass idea" and it's a fucking tragedy because there's so little original content financed like this nowadays, but this is not original content. This is a lame attempt at starting a new IP.
Fuck you, Zack Snyder. I’m not watching part two.
