REVIEW
A ruthless admiral of the empire of the Motherworld, Atticus Noble, demands the villagers of Veldt an extraordinary supply of grain in 10 weeks. One of the villagers Kora decides to assemble the warriors from across the galaxy to fight against the Motherland.
I have a tremendous respect for Zack Snyder because of his style of filmmaking and the dark elements of political philosophy that he applies in his directional artistry. The meticulous structure that constructs his artistic image of the world that he shoots in the film takes time to grow. Same is the case with the first part of Rebel Moon that is now the beginning of an exciting franchise.
Although, the core of story doesn’t add much to new ideas as the plot heavily reminds me of Star Wars and Dune as well as Zack’s very own Justice League but Zack Snyder has this quality of making the film look beautiful and artistic that covers the mediocrity of the story. To my surprise, even action sequences were unimpressive. Slow-motion technique has been one of Zack’s uncontrolled habit in detailing a shot. But this time, he overused this and he needs to put limit on the slow-mos.
After I get settled with the plot in the first 40 minutes, the growth of the screenplay got confined because the remainder of the film proceeded with Kora recruiting warriors by traveling to different planets and after watching their heroics against the oppression. Moreover, the introduction of the warriors who join Kora’s justice league lack character development. The final thirty minutes were interesting but the screen-time overall is nearly 140 minutes which is quite short for a space opera. And this is exactly why the characters of Titus, Nemesis, Bloodaxe, and Tarak were unable to grow nor their worlds were given enough minutes to understand and therefore looked like mere theme parks to us.
So what’s the talking point if the film has an ordinary story and typical action sequences? It is the fictional universe and its aesthetics that are captivating. The entire universal detailing of the Rebel Moon is not based on some novel but Zack’s own vision about his universe. Rebel Moon is like any director’s re-imagination of Star Wars with darker elements and mature content. And after watching the trailer of the second part of the Rebel Moon, the vision is much clear that the Rebel Moon franchise has similar plot elements of Akira Kurosawa‘s Seven Samurai. Even Kora had seven.
There was an interesting shot about a princess of whom Kora was the royal bodyguard. Her name was Issa and had the ability to give life to the dead. Did Zack get inspiration from the Islamic faith or should I assume if it is a strange coincidence? Because Issa in Islam is the messenger of God and he was a lifegiver.
Junkie XL‘s music is a plus and so far has been a fabulous collaboration with Zack. And there is no question about Zack’s art of worldbuilding, exellence in CGI and VFX.
CLOSING REMARKS
Although, the second part will give the whole picture of where Rebel Moon stands in the elite ranks of space universes or if not. See, Rebel Moon without a doubt is enjoyable especially for Zack Snyder cultists like me. But on a judgement scale, Rebel Moon offers a repeated plot line that has been watched before with better scripts and action sequences. The visual spectacle is never a question, its just the film lacks novelty.
RATING 6.5/10
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Sami Naik | Film Critic 