Rebel Moon 2: The Scargiver review: A Netflix franchise flatlines

Last December Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire was a paint-by-numbers space opera filled with Zack Snyder’s maximalist colors. Opened as “Seven samurai But make it Star Wars” (literally for Lucasfilm), the finished product was at best a violent B-movie mashup and at worst an expensive Asylum-style mockbuster. Not a great movie, but a little promising? The most glaring omission: an ending. After the heroine Kora (Sofia Boutella) fought for two hours with a crew to defend an agricultural planet from the forces of the Empire, there was no real showdown; Snyder stuck with the payout Second part: The scar donor.

Unfortunately, anyone expecting a driving action finale should adjust their expectations: The scar donor, now on Netflix, is a blaring stinger that lasts two hours. The characters in A child of fire They were basically walking, talking RPG class types, but they went everywhere from space brothels to ranch planets to the inner sanctums of the Empire. In Second part, Snyder and his co-writers Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten contain and stifle the drama on Veldt, home to an agrarian society steeped in the Malickian poetry of touching wheat. An hour is spent preparing for war, with obligatory training montages and empty reflections on the state of the universe. The back half is a brown-colored, smoke-filled militaristic battle, occasionally intersected by red plasma guns. It’s ugly, it’s monotonous, it’s severely lacking Stand up and cheer moments.

Help, the Rebel Moon franchise has fallen and can’t get back up!

But seriously… what happened here?

After dozing off with 20 minutes to go, waking up, rewinding, and then watching to the end, I found myself angrier than expected when Junkie XL’s percussive anthem howled over the end credits. There was potential here. I don’t count myself as one of Snyder’s biggest fans, but Dawn of the Dead

remains excellent, his Justice League Redux was a big improvement and his first Netflix film, Army of the Dead, convinced me. I had low expectations after that A child of firebut theoretically, The scar donor was a final act where a splash page maker could really go to town. A dumbed-down, low-key sci-fi action film should be a check for Snyder to cash. Instead, it delivered a plain, dirty downer of a film.

There is so much potential shimmering in the dust of the two Rebel Moon films. Sofia Boutella is full of action and can convincingly plow through hordes of bad guys in the patented Snyder slow motion – and with palpable humanity. Her character, Kora, evolved from the adopted daughter of Emperor Palpatine’s second-in-command, Belisarius, to a high-ranking officer of the Empire and a fugitive on the run who hopes to redeem herself by protecting the people of Veldt and shattering the galaxy Tyranny. The conflict is all hands-on, but Boutella sells it as pulp melodrama A child of fire. The scar donor gives her nothing to build on.

Snyder is really smart with his casting. Djimon Hounsou is in full powerhouse mode in the sequel and even gets the chance to sing a war ballad in the middle a mix of African languages comes from his home country Benin). Doona Bae continues to strike with her dual swords The scar donor. Ed Skrein’s despicable Atticus Noble is even more of a typical snarling villain after his brain is rebooted and he tries.

That’s the main problem: there’s tons of talent on display, all wrapped up in established characters and sloppy action.

In the first half of the film, Snyder gathers his band of heroes around a table on the eve of war to tell their backstories – and they all look and feel exactly the same! Each member of the team faced an explosion at a crucial time in their past. Every planet they come from is covered in soot. Each memory is explained using the same visual vocabulary. I’m all for slow cinema, but even Paul Schrader would forego this level of exposition torture.

As Snyder told me during press rounds last year A child of fire, the Rebel Moon films were his chance to get weirder than ever. “I was looking for something that really pushed the sci-fi fantasy elements to the extreme,” said Snyder. There is only one scene The scar donor

This is a far cry from the big conversation when we finally see the royal assassination attempt that forced Kora to flee. In the background of the scene, an Imperium string quartet plays diegetic horror music during an even bigger reveal. Why should they keep playing when people are being murdered outright? Who cares, it’s cinema. Snyder is right to allow the bizarre to flow rather than over-explaining the why, but there’s nothing before or after the scene that’s even remotely as “extreme.”

Snyder has a background in the visual arts, particularly painting, and it shows in the light-dark rush of speed that litters his filmography. But the closest The scar donor As far as artistic is concerned, it can be compared to that of Goya Saturn devours his son, This makes it almost monochromatic and feels like someone is biting your head off. Start with Army of the Dead, Snyder has taken on directing as well as directing his own films, and in the sequel to “Rebel Moon” it feels like a loss – not only is there a lack of vision when it comes to the frames, but also the geography and the pace seems slippery. Action movies shot on a quarter of it Scar donorThe cost to the budget is more impactful than the swords-versus-guns combat we see in the middle of the battle on Veldt. If the idea was to do what Star Wars couldn’t do, Rebel Moon should will go harder than Villain One or Andor.

Rebel Moon Part Three, anyone?

Rebel Moon was supposed to be Netflix’s big franchise, a Star Wars-level “universe” to explore. Snyder, Johnstad and Hatten are said to have planned six films in the saga, into which Netflix preemptively invested money Rebel Moon spinoff comics

and a video game (with a theoretical TTRPG project that was canceled for reasons). beyond quality). After Snyder delivered his first two films, the company spent millions Promotional events and marketinga sign that it… something. Perhaps The scar donor will defy reviews, be a huge success for Netflix and spawn intended sequels – Second part has no post-credits scene, but uses the final beat to explain where the story may go next Part three. They left that in there.

A major hurdle facing Snyder only became apparent after the release of part One. A new producer, Dan Lin (ItThe Lego Movies) has stepped in to take over Netflix’s film lineup and a recent report on it The Hollywood Reporter suggests that he wants to make the board smaller, not larger. While Netflix flaunted Rebel Moon part OneWhile Lin immediately achieved #1 status upon his arrival, the long-term numbers weren’t such an undeniable success that Lin had to greenlight the sequels. In fact, THR noted this in its report on Lin’s tenure Rebel Moon The Julia Roberts-directed sci-fi chamber drama premiered to only half the audience Leave the world behind – a fitting title for what could happen next in the Rebel Moon series.

At least there’s a little more to it Rebel Moon Material is waiting in the starting blocks; as Snyder promised from the start, R-rated cuts from A child of fire And The scar donor were created alongside the PG-13 versions now present on the platform. In a previous interview with Polygon, Snyder said that while these versions are more violent, they are also “a deeper look into the universe – it’s much more,” adding, “It’s almost like the story is in a slightly different dimension plays as this movie.” That’s coming out soon.”

Let’s hope so! The swampy version of The scar donor The series, currently available on Netflix, inspires little confidence as to what might come out of the Rebel Moon series in the future. Perhaps that was Snyder’s plan all along, to release a half-hearted PG-13 cut of his film so that the meatier, more emotional R-rated story could really shine. Or maybe he just lost the plot by remixing one too many influences. Ultimately, if Rebel Moon ends with The scar donorit means the best Rebel Moon story is still ahead: the one Snyder will tell about “what was supposed to happen.” Rebel Moon Part Three” he dished out over the course of his next decade of interviews.