‘Rebel Moon Part 1’ Review: Zack Snyder’s Netflix Space Opera Is A Mixed Bag

Rebel Moon First things first, I did not hate I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it. I came away from the movie with mixed feelings. Then again, I have mixed feelings about the first which I do love, but which is undeniably a rough draft of what George Lucas and his collaborators eventually came up with across the original trilogy.

is not a trilogy, and that’s my first complaint. I am not a fan of these two-part movies. A movie should be one film or three films.

Two is an awkward number, especially for what is obviously intended to be a major space opera epic. Too much and too little were attempted and achieved in Part 1. The pacing is a mess.

It moves too slowly much of the time, yet the story—the important pieces like character development—are rushed through and glossed over. My second complaint is that so much of the movie makes so little sense. Yes, I can understand how a giant space empire needs food to feed its soldiers.

No, I can’t see how a group of five or six warriors (even supplemented with three or four squads of rebel fighters) will be able to fight off a massive dreadnought ship and its battalions of well-armed troops. I liked the twist and the betrayal toward the end of the movie, but I thought the means by which our heroes escape quite preposterous. Who designed those scorpion chair robots? They’re very cool but.

. . why would you make the paralyzing device the same as the key? And how would the farmer, Gunnar, know that? It would have made more sense for Kai to be playing a deeper, twistier game here.

Rebel Moon functions like the beginning of or or, well, . A village comes under threat by a powerful enemy and a group of rough-around-the-edges heroes are gathered to help the villagers fight back. The problem here is scale.

If Snyder had made the enemy a group of space pirates or some kind of evil space biker gang or something, fine. Even just a local officer manning this planet who cracks down to forcefully. But we’re talking about a massive, multi-star-system force that’s conquered known space and is willing to throw all its might at these villagers.

I don’t buy it. The actual gathering of the heroes is also poorly paced. We get a massively extended scene of Tarak breaking and then riding a space griffon (with lots of Snyder slo-mo to slow things down further) torn straight out of the hippogriff scenes, but then when they find General Titus (a slovenly drunk now, but still ripped) it’s one motivational speech and off we go.

is basically PG-13 in a lot of ways—you won’t hear that kind of language in a galaxy far, far away or have scenes with attempted sexual assault—but it’s never as charming or funny. The characters aren’t terrible, but the most likeable among them ends up being a bad guy. There’s not nearly enough comic relief, which directors like Snyder seem to never realize helps us care and bond with characters so that we care more when bad things happen to them.

Comic relief helps create tension! I could go on and on about all the little things that didn’t make sense in this movie, but the long and short of it is simple: With a little more time and a stronger script, this could have been a tremendous space opera. Instead, it was merely enjoyable. I didn’t find it half so terrible as the reviews made it sound.

All the “worst movies ever!” talk seems rather over-the-top and breathless to me. Rebel Moon In fact, I’d say I like this more than any of Snyder’s films since the old days of and Sure, it’s derivative. So is I’m fine with derivative works, especially in the sword-and-planet genre.

John Carter was around long before I don’t begrudge Frank Herbert for riffing off of Edgar Rice Burroughs, or George Lucas riffing off of Herbert and Akira Kurosawa, or Zack Snyder riffing off all of the above. I’ve had my own ideas for sword-and-planet-and-samurai stories. We’re all influenced by a million things.

The problem with is that it doesn’t do enough to establish itself as something unique and coherent. Maybe that will change when we have Part 2, but I wish Snyder had come up with some better hooks, some more obvious ways to make this universe special and distinct rather than just a hodge-podge of other people’s ideas. And yet, at the same time, it felt mostly very capable as a somewhat darker, edgier wooden characters and flimsy plot aside.

I enjoyed the action and was mostly entertained throughout. If anything, it suffered from many of the same problems the sequel trilogy suffered from, which were often pacing issues. Recall, the original trilogy did such a great job at two things: First, it gave us great characters we cared about; second, it spent meaningful time establishing a sense of place in each of its films.

We got to know planets like Tatooine, Dagobah, Hoth, the moon of Endor, the Death Star, Cloud City and so forth. In the sequel trilogy and in the places we go are barely established at all and utterly forgettable. The characters have potential, but we hardly scratch the surface.

Still, I like them for the most part. I like Sofia Boutella’s Kora (I almost titled this review, ) though I wish Snyder had picked better ways to reveal her past to us than long exposition-laden flashbacks. Charlie Hunnam’s Kai was a lot of fun, though he—like all the others—gets a little lost in the mix of introducing so many characters in so short a span.

Rebel Moon The robot, Jimmy, is an instant favorite thanks to the wonderful voice work from Anthony Hopkins. More Jimmy, please. Djimon Hounsou’s General Titus didn’t get enough screentime at all (perhaps half of these characters should have been introduced in the second movie in the fictional trilogy I wish this was) and Michiel Huisman’s Gunnar and Bae Doona’s sword-wielding Nemesis, not to mention the surprisingly sympathetic spider-monster-lady she fights.

Ed Skrein makes a terrific villain as Admiral Atticus Noble, even if he is a walking cliche and a better-dressed Imperial. Meanwhile, the special effects, sound design, costumes and cinematography were all top-notch. I really liked this film’s take on laser blasters, which pop holes right through people.

Nemesis’s swords aren’t quite lightsabers, though they looked like that in the trailer. Rather, they’re normal swords that heat up into glowing fire-blades. I just wish that all this attention to detail had been given a little more room to breathe—which is a sentiment I hold toward the characters and the dialogue as well.

I suppose much of my enjoyment here is probably due to the exceptionally low expectations I came into the movie with. I was fully expecting it to be dreadful at every turn, but it was more like a fast food cheeseburger. Not bad, really, just nothing particularly unique and not the type of burger you’d get on a date.

I enjoy a fast food burger from time to time, though. It can really hit the spot! scratched that space opera itch I always have in the same way did when that movie came out and bombed with critics and audiences, and it did it without the Force. It’s no by any means, but it’s really no worse than the sequel trilogy and I enjoyed it more than the prequels.

At least there’s no Jar Jar Binks. I’m definitely going to watch Part 2 and I’m genuinely curious to see what happens. I’ll probably even watch the director’s cut when that comes out (though it should have just been that version from the start for goodness sakes!) which is something I didn’t have the stomach for with What did you think of ? Let me know on or .

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