Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire | A Beautiful Frustrating Promise

I'm honestly confused as to which point of the ‘Snyder Wars’ are we going through right now!

Well, a quick visit online on the Twitter battlefield reveals the usual: His fans are the rebellion, blindly defending their poor mistreated visionary from the egocentric crudity of critics incapable of seeing value in his work and style.

While the critics who love to make fun of these fans, waste their time criticizing the films that they are already upfront ready to dislike because I don't know when that it was decided that everything that comes out of Snyder’s name and its fan base is 'not cinema'. Ironically they are always the first to go and debate about new rotten film from awards season, where their moral judgment criticisms of Snyder simply don't fit in those particular Oscar potential flicks, exactly where they usually fit the most!

The sociological chaos sinks into a bitter core of hatred. There is no clarity. Critical subjectivity is replaced by mockery amidst the cries of defense and clamor. This could’ve been the definition of the political backdrop around the dominance imposed by ‘Motherworld’, the evil Imperium that Snyder created in his Rebel Moon, and perhaps explore the different levels of sociological ramifications of the effects of genocide that an evil elitist empire reigns over a galaxy divided into bubbles of increasingly closed arguments and hollow vision in their own problems and worldviews, incapable of seeing true evil / enemy that divides them… but no, they’re boiled down to Galactic Nazis. Ok, next!

‘But hold on just a minute, why are you taking such subjects in a dumb streaming blockbuster all so serious?!’ – I hear you say. Well, isn’t that just the Snyder trace? One of the things that consistently keeps on being one of his most admirable feats. He’s perhaps the sole remaining blockbuster auteur with that vulgar selflessness that takes its material one hundred percent serious. Not as prestigious as an acclaimed James Cameron or once Peter Jackson, nor with a large group of admires inside some critic circles like the Wachowski or Paul W. S. Anderson.

Snyder stands right there in the middle, with only the support of his beloved stars, Christopher Nolan of all people and the ‘Snyder cult’ of fans whom are actually very passionate audience the filmmaker created for himself after getting progressively mistreated by studio execs once he decided to touch on beloved IPs such as the DC brand, that only served to propagate the director he’s today, at full control of his craft and with Netflix ready to bank whatever the man cooks up, and his faithful audience will eat up no questions asked.

And in any other case, I would‘ve been right there along with them at the frontlines! I love Snyder genuinely, both as a an pretty chill dude that’s fully honest and earnest about his films and his likes, as I can see the ambitious imagination and the risqué ballzy demeanor he handles his ideas and concepts, always taking mythos world building and lore with 100% serious levels of commitment that in more than one occasion served to create pretty unique genre flicks with the creative punch and signature most franchise blockbuster today would’ve dreamed to have even half of it.

I do however must (unfortunately) agree with the extended / alternative / director’s cut – whatever you wanna call it – ‘fatigue’ discourse on this one. Not that I’ll be hypocrite and declare this is an marketing abomination and still going to watch the director’s cut late in 2024 and probably enjoy it a WHOLE lot more and declare it as the definitive version of the movie – which is probably what will eventually happen.

This however doesn’t make it less egregious how such a disjointed clunky well-dressed mess is released and we’re suppose to accept it for what it is, knowing that’s not the finished product of the director’s vision, and the fans defense of this acts directly as a self-detriment of Snyder’s image in this endless non-breaking cycle of online hatred!

I thought those days were behind us and what we would have now was Snyder delivering the films he wants, showing his face ready for the slap, love it or hate it, as he always was, but now with his essence left intact! But no, Rebel Moon got sold around a promotion based on half-finished work that’s openly admitting is just an aperitif, while the eventual ‘director’s cut’ will be “its own separate thing” as the defenders and Snyder himself called it as.

Isn’t the sole purpose of such cuts existing in the first place is to be the version the director originally wanted?! That’s why fans scream their lungs out begging for the Snyder-cut of Justice League to come out to give his vision and artistic integrity justice! But now Netflix is purposefully taking the alternative-cut hype train completely off its original meaning just to promote these films as long as possible to guarantee a massive range of views and clicks because that’s how their income works and Snyder is going right along with it. It's an act of simple glaring marketing fraud that people are walking oblivious directly into, coming at the cost of a movie’s potential whole quality!

That however could’ve be forgiven if what we had here did indeed worked enough on its own, and it so appears in the first thirty minutes or so with the conflict establishment around our group of protagonists living a quiet humble peaceful life in their little farm world of Veldt until the fascist might of Motherworld decide to show up to loot their grain and explore their hard-labor.

Is the traditional Seven Samurai / Magnificent Seven working its old-fashioned charm, despite some pretty disposable mouthful exposition bits. But that definitely show Snyder’s clear intent of taking its time with in letting the story and characters build its own breath of pace and progressive gain scale through well coordinated interactions that range from the spiritual connections made around genuine feelings of awe and intrigue – the first scenes with the android Jimmy work pretty well around this; next to the tensions of violence about to erupt at any given second with the Motherworld forces acting their most evil Caucasian sex-predator selves.

That’s why is baffling weird how the rest of the movie over rushes itself in structural overlaps that’s all around recruitment sections and gazing at this beautifully looking rendered different planet worlds, with some pauses for a little Sofia Boutella’s character backstory or Ed Skrein acting his evil British shtick self – the role he was born to play! While our cast of legendary warriors about to impose the gargantuan might of oppression and all of them are a bunch of one-noted vacuums of symbolic emptiness placed around the scene more as different action figures standing at Snyder’s game board of his created space opera RPG.

All great actors whose characters show potential, but feel contrived amidst so much missed opportunities and forced dramatic conflicts that barely ever work! With poor Sofia Boutella when barely shining in too disjointed action scenes, is being put in the awkward position to pull the dramatic chops she clearly doesn't have. Playing the traditional conflicted warrior with a glooming past that you can easily piece two and two together and get the ‘what’ or ‘who’ she is amidst the lore that Snyder is trying to create here in regards to the ‘slain king by the one they trusted the most’ and gave the usurpers the control of the galaxy.

While the rest of the special pack gang, Djimon Hounsou's Titus, Bae Doona's Nemesis, Staz Nair's Tarak all look cool and that's about it. All could’ve been solved with well punctuated character interactions and banter that could’ve builded character and audience affability with each of them, but nah, there’s no bond, no connection, is always in a hurry to jump onto the next planet and establish the next big confrontation that will only happen in the next movie.

That’s because the script – if you can call it that; doesn’t trust the human interaction beyond what you see on the screen, and AGAIN, if what you see here is the unfinished product, of course if it will have a hard time transmitting anything truly meaningful other than its out-loud expelled ideas around near empty personifications.

And oh my god, never have I seen Charlie Hunnam getting THIS much wasted, both in a generic Han Solo type then turned part of the Caucasian scum of the galaxy at the climax just because his toxic straight male archetype just doesn't belong in the diversity leading group, they have already the healthy masculinity token of Michiel Huisman's Gunnar as the good white-exception, a sensitive farmer soul just along for the ride.

I should’ve suspected when Army of the Dead was already showing hints of this with thrown away elements such as border-control metaphor for the Trump era. But is still  disappointing to see how Snyder, a guy who built off a career around making strong female heroines without ever having to call attention upon that; treating its males and females character with equal amount of dimensional layers of characterization, drawn around the action that he placed them.

Now having to fit in the modern mandate of progressive agendas where all evil is part of the oppressing white male circle of potential sex-offenders that need to be denounced on screen because that’s exactly how reality works in modern Hollywood mindset. Where moral values are designed by race and gender defining putrid ideas of self- righteousness that deem one demographic against another, that at this point of the industry wear, just feel cartoonish childish! It’s sad to point all that in a movie that I can clear still see Zack’s spirit flouring bright. Money is definitely on screen, the sound, scale and effects is all big theater release quality.

Creating his dreamed Heavy-Metal Space-Opera from literal scratch, with a vast range of influences and inspirations that goes from the drawned-effect backdrops has a 70s / 80s Flash Gordon feel; anime design; the adventure/journey archetypes that range between Tolkien and Kurosawa; and some glaring call backs to A New Hope that reveal the Star Wars residue that his original material came from – a Seven Samurai with Jedis pitch. Though best case scenario, Rebel Moon feels less Star Wars derivative and more if Chronicles of Riddick got directed by Albert Pyun, and all the better!

Is the work whose origins clearly come from a young teenage's sketchbooks of monsters and spaceships, reuniting a conglomerate of RPGs and sci-fi inspirations that sees the director creating his own mythological novelty in big sprawling scale whose first chapter here is clearly all setting up of elements and plot threads that only later will be picked up. Is derivative sure, but made with clear passion! Snyder has genuine fascination with essential and sentimental aspects of the worlds he creates. Where his skills in forming imagetic momentum enhancing the imagetic elements of the scene are, as always, undeniably dazzling to behold.

Creating its pursued pictorial effect or comic strip framing that still feel entertaining to experience it, though the anamorphic lenses has a weird hazy effect in some shots that I don’t know if it was purposeful to give a grounded real-footage reality or part of the always commendable experimentation from Snyder’s techniques. Where even the overuse of slow-mo feels the least of complaints here, because really he seems subdued with it here more than in Justice League, while Tom Holkenborg's soundtrack feels sadly recycled from that film!

Amidst this, the overall journey has its good isolated moments too. Tarak’s taming of the griffin and the Spider-Lady fight scene with Bae Dona’s Nemesis were all pretty cool, though I don't know why I felt the choreography felt a little clunky and slow. The overall action is actually filled with inexcusable hiccups with weird abrupt cutaways, trying to hide the frames where the R rated buzz would hit in so the sanitized PG-13 rests its inscrutable domain that’s beyond me why it became an exec-decision within streaming services that usually avoids such bullshit – again, clicks, I know.

It remains ironic how these demonic weird alien beings or faceless androids manage to be more interesting investing characters than our league of heroes. Maybe because again Snyder’s ideas work better as bringing to life weird cerebral concepts rather than dealing with traditional dramatic elements! That’s why a scene where an weird alien-bug talking via a corpse or a dead body has its soul sucked in to a virtual reality are more endearing and compelling; than Ray Fisher’s Bloodaxe sacrificing himself trying to pull some emotion comes off flat.

I guess some would call out the attention for perhaps unfair criticism around the story structure, taking that what you're watching is clearly the first half build up of a longer story, and sure that's exactly how it feels and it could've been still exactly that, if made more compelling to really sell us this universe and story is trying to tell inside of it!

This is literally the first 40 minutes of recruitment from Seven Samurai – or the first thirty of Magnificent Seven; extended to a two-hour galactic romp that feels downright anti-climatic, carried by a conjunction of empty promises that don’t lead up to anywhere particularly interesting other than mild amusement for maybe its pyrotechnical ambitions around nice played concepts, that feel unfortunately half-baked.

I love you Zack but I know you can pull way better than this. I can only hope that I will eat my words up in the eventual directors cut or an actually entertaining Part 2, but as of right now, this Rebellion is yet to convince me!