Oh Zack Snyder, you enigma you. A resident of Camp Polarizing alongside fellow campers Shyamalan and von Trier, Zack Snyder seems to exist in two realities where he is regarded as a visionary in one and a heretic to cinema itself in another. Would I say I hate Zack Snyder? Of course not.

His fanbase on the other hand? Well, I’m not trying to get tar and feathered so I’ll hold my tongue.

But if I’m being honest, Snyder is not one I tend to gravitate towards when looking for something to watch. While I can appreciate his drive to achieve his particular visual style, I mostly find his films to be tedious. This is just my opinion, but a lot of his films tend to take on more mature themes without an actual mature voice guiding the narrative. It gives his films a lot of grunge, yet rarely do they ever possess the grit or edge you’d maybe expect. We saw this with his Snyderverse series of films, which set out to bring a darker, more serious tone to the world of DC Comics to counteract the bright and quippy MCU.  And we know how that went.

A very similar attempt was rumored to be coming to Star Wars at one point, but when Disney decided to pass on it, Netflix was quick to throw some money at the divisive director, hoping he could direct his rabid fan bases’ eyes to their streaming service. This resulted in Rebel Moon, a space opera intended to span multiple films and compete with the likes of Star Wars and Dune. The first film, subtitled the Child of Fire, was released at the end of 2023 and was quickly followed up by Part: 2, the Scargiver, which came out this past week. So I decided to do something I don’t do too often; have a double feature and review both films. And if you’re wondering how that experience left me, just know I’m in the process of making a full recovery!

I struggle to call Rebel Moon ambitious or against-the-grain, as this is unfortunately a display of some of Snyder’s worst habits. A flavorless cast of characters, an unappealing visual style and by the numbers narrative beats bog this film down tremendously. There are small glimpses of interesting world building or character designs at times, but the films would rather trudge down the most uninteresting, generic route possible, hoping to enthrall you with its squandered and misdirected action sequences. And if you’re confused about which film I’m talking about, I’m talking about both because I feel about the same for the two of them. There’s minor pluses and minuses to each, but with a back to back production there’s no room to learn from your mistakes, so you just keep on doing the same thing not knowing that it doesn’t work. His “image over narrative” approach just falls flat, doing little to make me care about the characters, story or world despite 5 hours of film to work with. And there’s supposed to be 4 to 6 more of these? Netflix, have mercy.

To quickly sum up the two films, Part 1 introduces us to a moon called Veldt, where a small farming community manages to flourish. That is until members of a galactic Imperium show up, forcefully taking control of the town to harness their crop production. After running roughshod and harassing the members of the village, the colonizers are killed by a local farmer named Kora, who then embarks on a journey across worlds to assemble an army to battle the Imperium when they inevitably return. Along the way she befriends warriors of varying backgrounds, forming a coalition to revolt against the oppressive empire in a last ditch battle on that little moon colony.

So, Seven Samurai in space. Believe it or not, I don’t fault Zack for going with such an iconic setup, it really is the execution that ruins the idea for me. Take the characters; they’re most if not all hardened badasses in one way or another, though they come from different walks of life and tragedy. That’s not really the issue though, it’s that they all sound exactly the same. Their personalities are surface level, void of any feasible depth beyond stock character archetypes. Hell, they all sound the exact same, delivering each line with a similar stoicism that makes each of them blend together in a blur of gray and brown muck. Isn’t that supposed to be the beauty of these kinds of rag tag group stories; it allows you to show off multiple types of personalities and quirks? I don’t really even fault most of the actors here, as they’re given very little room to stretch their legs and make these characters memorable. There’s no sense of comradery, brotherhood, or inner turmoil amongst the group, just characters thrown together with no real meshing to be found.

The most intriguing characters are often used for one scene standouts or side stories that the film itself should have focused around instead. Take Jimmy, a robot voiced by Anthony Hopkins who has rebelled against his Imperium programming in a personal journey to better connect with living organisms and their world. It’s not exactly groundbreaking, but it does lend itself to a story with far more potential, one that could properly represent self-discovery and purpose. Yet he’s barely in the film to make room for the flat main cast. The villains aren’t much better, operating off of cartoonishly shallow militant identities we’ve already seen plenty of times in other sci-fi films. Their actions are heinous for sure, but only when you look at them objectively. Sure, threatening to SA a helpless woman is despicable, but it’s not done in service of a character or the story, it’s just meant to repulse you. It just screams “edgy” to me in order to make it stand out in the current admittedly sanitized run of Star Wars films.

If you really wanted to be better than current Star Wars, you should have gone with a more engaging story. It feels extremely derivative of similar films of its ilk, rehashing similar narrative beats without really injecting any element of surprise or originality to give it its own identity. Like I said before, the “rebels vs. the empire” has been done to death and it’s going to take a lot more than this simple black and white approach to make it work again. You never really feel the scope of a greater universe itching to be explored, especially in the 2nd film which takes place all but entirely on the farming moon. It builds towards a big fight which does have its payoffs, but only in a similar vein of watching explosion compilations on YouTube. Any attempts at emotional depth just feel insincere, an afterthought added to hide the films’ true intention; try to look cool. And let me tell you, these films hardly even achieve that.

Despite traveling to various different worlds, each locale is stricken by the same ugly color palette and cinematography. I get this desaturated, grimey look is meant to convey a bare knuckle attitude, but it’s just too unappealing to look at for the bulk of these films. You get some somewhat interesting location designs here and there, but the coloring really does not do these metal-magazine inspired places justice. The camera seems to be doing it’s best to hide these backgrounds as well, as so many scenes have this nauseatingly shallow depth of field, making environments a blur when it really doesn’t call for it, like two characters talking across from one another. While I’ll admit Snyder knows how to frame a cool shot, it only ever seems to be done with the intention of style while adding littler substance to the scene itself. This reminded me a lot of Snyder’s previous Netflix joint, Army of the Dead, which featured him as director of photography. And what do you know, he’s back in that chair again, and it really shows both in slower and more high octane scenes.

I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion, but I do not like how Snyder shoots action sequences. The most obvious culprit is the overuse of slow-motion, which I think severely severs the intensity from the fight scenes. Slow-mo is usually utilized to emphasize impactful moments, but when it’s used every few seconds, it takes the wind out of the action. The choreography just ends up looking floaty, slow and toothless. There’s one scene where a character dashes over a small step, it throws it into slow-mo for a few seconds, and then it just resumes like normal with no real emphasis being added to that moment. At times it really just feels like padding for time or a lack of footage. This is certainly one way to combat the shaky cam style of action, but I can’t exactly call this a winning fight. Outside of that, the technicals are usually okay, but there’s still some glaring hiccups. There’s a scene in the 2nd film where characters are talking late at night around a table and you can hear crickets chirping in the distance…but only when the characters are talking. In the dead space between sentences, all of the audio is removed, but when characters start talking again the background noise comes back in. It just makes the films feel even more sloppy, and the narrative was already slopping it up so I was hoping this would at least be a decent movie to look at, and I’m starting to think I was genuinely dumb for thinking that.

Despite claims of review bombing or better films being locked behind director’s cuts, it’s becoming more and more apparent that the biggest enemy to Zack Snyder…is Zack Snyder. I don’t know if it’s ego or smoke being blow up your ass for 10 years because of all the Snydercut BS, but I feel as though Snyder either can’t or won’t attempt to grow as a filmmaker. The Rebel Moon films are pure examples of that, continuing to showcase some of his worst habits left unchecked. Characters lack the maturity to be taken seriously, dialogue says little despite characters talking a lot, and action set pieces are often either nonsense eyesores or neutered by slow motion. These two movies were just chores to sit through, but not in the way where there’s some deeper gem to unearth through undivided attention. They’re overly long, painfully uninteresting, and offer nothing new to the genre aside from being a slightly more violent Star Wars. I really don’t see a reason to return to this world or these characters, especially for potentially 5 more films. If you’re looking for space operas for adults just watch the Dune films or the series Andor, both of which surprised the hell out of me.

For now, I have to walk away, barricade my doors, and get ready to filter through the death threats. Cheers to you Zack; your cinematic dreams are my nightmares, but at least you’re living them.

RATING

VELDT HARVEST

The farming moon of Veldt is known for their rolling green hills, bountiful grain fields, and being a perfect target for colonization. But we can ignore that third bit and focus on bringing in an ample harvest with this refreshing smash-style cocktail. Sweetened with both fresh blackberries and cinnamon, the Veldt Harvest manages to be both fresh and slightly desserty. The addition of wheat beer also brings in a very welcome, grainy flavor and a slight addition of citrus to pair nicely with the present fruit. Put the plow down and come replenish yourself with one of these, and ready yourself for some much needed government rebellion.

INGREDIENTS

• 2oz bourbon
• 1/2oz lemon juice
• 1/4oz cinnamon syrup
• 6 mint leaves
• 6 blackberries
• Top: Wheat beer
• Garnish: Blackberries
• Garnish: Mint sprig

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a glass, add mint leaves, cinnamon syrup, blackberries, and lemon juice in a glass.
2. Add the whiskey, a little bit of ice, then stir to chill.
3. Top with wheat beer and additional ice if needed.
4. Garnish with mint sprig and blackberries.