I simply cannot go another second without this movie being watched š§ I refer to the first Rebel Moon as ā$2-Shop Star Wars Toys: The Movieā, and it ended on a cliffhanger, with a Part 2 just around the corner. Most people vehemently rejected the first installment, Rebel Moon Part 1 ā A Child of Fire, but framing it like I did, I donāt know, it was interesting šāāļø Iām not expecting miracles from this sequel either; Iām just returning to the worksite to get the job done.
Kora (Sofia Boutella) and her band of āwarrior bugsā come home to the farming colony of Veldt, thinking they have already saved the day. Oh, but no, as Noble (Ed Skrein), the most wicked admiral of the domineering Motherworld, was found and revived in the nick of time, and now he is on his way to Veldt, ready to attack. The villagers down below get wind of this, and prepare for the grueling battle ahead.
It was glorious summer, on the eve of new year, when I reviewed Rebel Moon Part 1 ā A Child of Fire; but now, in Australia itās cold, and I therefore think I have less tolerance for hogwash. Seriously, a lot of the backgrounds and technology used in this franchise look like something from Red Dwarf or Doctor Who, available two decades ago on analog TV. The horses used for this movie mustāve had green CGI dots on their faces to change them into an alien species, and they probably would be more captivating if the animators had just left the dots. Nothing about this movie looks impressive, but itās not all about that, and far be it for me to only get hung up on style, or potential budget, when thereās a story at play. And hey, if this movie wants to contain an hour-long war sequences once the allies must defend Veldt, then I donāt mind that. Director Zack Snyder has filmed a lot of action in his day, and there are elements of this final fight that are worthy of their time ā there are elements of the final fight that also look like a video game, but I digress. I also liked the scene that contained the flashbacks, to the past lives of our warriors ā it reminded me of how, in the first Rebel Moon, I was most intrigued by the short snippet of the spider-lady played by Jena Malone, which went to show that there was absorbing world-building put into this universe somewhere. I donāt know how much I want to encourage Snyder though, because the first half of this movie is rough, and characters get about making a lot of blasĆ© assumptions, that of course turn out to be correct, to plod the plot along ā my favourite is Noble just knowing that all his ground soldiers are dead on Veldt, and that the young private is a turncoat.
Holding this story together are just a lot of āhuh?ā moments, that really needed to be ironed out to make Rebel Moon ā Part 2: The Scargiver an entertainment worth investing in. Since theyāre not, it makes what is already a fairly simple narrative, and composite characters, even more two-dimensional. There are really too many to detail, but the biggest one revolves around Kora, revealing the final act that made her a traitor to the Motherworld ā well, it turns out that she was the one who killed the light Princess, as part of a duplicity she was subsequently blamed for š® She tells this to Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) while theyāre in bed together, and he continues to sympathise with her, and kiss her. Gunnar, man, Iāve been hard up for intimacy too at times, but I think a story involving stabbing a child in the back would even give me pause. Even if lover boy is so quick to forgive, how about Kora manifesting something akin to guilt? Maybe this is part of the business around how Kora is willing to surrender to Noble, before the battle, because she deserves to be punished, but itās too wrapped up in her wanting to protect the villagers to be clear š¤·āāļø Ultimately, I think on Guardians of the Galaxy, another space opera build from scratch, that was able to put depth of character into its heroes while also always moving forward with momentum. Koraā¦ is no Star-Lord. And thereās nothing overly likable about her at all. Does this reveal also imply that if she wasnāt betrayed by her mentor, sheād still be a willing participant of the Empire? š¤·āāļø I suppose, Kora has always been seen as a reluctant hero throughout this saga, but I donāt know, with a reveal this big, I desire more meat on my bones ā and sheās so quiet, itās hard to gauge her characterisation at the best of times.
I want to talk about editing, in relation to storytelling, and I often feel like film editing is a process that can dutifully go unnoticed if done properly. Twice during this movie, the editing does something very strange, where I feel like the characters are telling us one thing, but the editing is pushing another. For one, the editing makes such a big deal of the villagers harvesting grain, all the while intersecting scenes that inform us that Nobleās main objective is now capturing Kora, making the grain acquisition pretty irrelevant. And later on, the dim-Furiosa (Milius (Elise Duffy)) and Tomahawk Tarzan (Tarak (Staz Nair)) are still working out how theyāre going to survive the ground assault, when we know that the main ship is moving into position to obliterate the whole town up above! I feel like thereās usually an order of operations with fight scenes, where one threat is handled and dismissed before we are expected to care about the next. And similarly, with the former example, Iām all for some characters, like the villagers, being unawares of motives at play, but the way the movie lingers on that cutting grain makes me feel like we should be caring about it, when the stakes have moved on. These examples really donāt affect the overall plot, only our engagement in it, and I just found it all a bit weird ā not a thought Iād had before, and itās all boils down to another lesson in āyeahā¦.donāt do thatā, when it comes to optimizing a good movie.
Itās crazy to think of a world where we get a fully-fledged action movie sequel only months after the originalā¦ but then itās less impressive when you remember that Zack Snyder made a 4-hour Justice League movie, and making one story start and finish within 2 hours hasnāt been his strong suit š So, Iām certain a 4-hour epic across two movies was always the original pitch. Right now, would I say Iām excited by the prospect of more? Not really. But never say never! Listen, I donāt hate Snyderās intentions on the same level as most people, I reckon, and perhaps the perceived piling on that has occurred over the last few months has even swayed me to view this movies through a more negative lens. But these movies do remind me of clanging action figures together to create a ten-year-oldās fantasy, and thereās something diabolically nostalgic in that in its own way. But let me put it this way ā if Dune: Part Three was announced, and came out on the same day as a Rebel Moon: Part 3, I know which line Iād be in as fast as my legs could carry me, and Iād trudge to see how this B-team does it later on.
2.0
P.S. Oh yeah, actually, what pissed me off the most about this movie is the end, when a rebel fleet just flies into view to finish off the remaining aerial threats of the Motherworld. If there were always others out there, why did Kora never find a way to contact them for help in the first place??? It sortāve makes Veldtā¦ not the āRebel Moonāā¦ since who knows how many others exist already š š¤Æ
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