Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, 2024.
Directed by Zack Snyder.
Starring Sofia Boutella, Michiel Huisman, Ed Skrein, Djimon Hounsou, Doona Bae, Staz Nair, E. Duffy, Anthony Hopkins, Cleopatra Coleman, Fra Fee, Charlotte Maggi, Sky Yang, Stuart Martin, Alfonso Herrera, Cary Elwes, Rhian Rees, Dustin Ceithamer, and Stella Grace Fitzgerald.
SYNOPSIS:
Kora and surviving warriors prepare to defend Veldt, their new home, alongside its people against the Realm. The warriors face their pasts, revealing their motivations before the Realm’s forces arrive to crush the growing rebellion.
Giving credit where it’s due, Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver is slightly more entertaining than Part One: A Child of Fire. “Entertaining” is also a word used loosely; the second half of this chapter is nonstop action centered on a band of heroes defending a farm’s grain on planet Veldt from Imperium forces. However, despite heaps of exposition for each hero underlining why they’re fighting this war alongside heroine Kora (Sofia Boutella) and her muscular local farmer love interest Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), the endless explosions, sacrifices, ground skirmishes, aerial combat, and all-around mayhem is numbing, still severely lacking any reason to be invested.
There are moments of flashy physicality during the fight choreography (all of which is frustratingly obfuscated by horrendous framing from Zack Snyder, covering those fisticuffs in an ugly brownish color palette with smoke and fire raging around them) that allow one to see a glimmer of potential in not just this installment, but the sci-fi universe as a whole. Pulling from tried-and-true tropes is fine, but Zack Snyder has no visual filmmaking sensibility beyond repeatedly blowing shit up and entering slow motion.
Elaborating on the slow-motion part, Zack Snyder has also taken that to unintentionally hilarious extremes here, utilizing that stylistic choice even when nameless characters are doing something as insignificant as hauling around the grain. The task itself is important, as Kora, Gunnar, and the rest of the crew, ranging from Djimon Hounsou’s former Imperium general Titus, Doona Bae’s lightsaber-ripoff wielding Nemesis, Staz Nair’s beast-bonding/riding dollar store Avatar Jake Sully Tarak, and Anthony Hopkins’s robot Jimmy, plan to use the grain as a shield. They are under the assumption that the arriving Imperium troops, led by a back-from-the-dead psychopathic Noble (Ed Skrein), won’t risk firing heavy artillery and destroying the much-needed resources.
It is commendable that Zack Snyder chooses a more character-driven approach for the first hour, but it also doesn’t mean much when the characterization itself is so thin, primarily consisting of each hero giving a monologue about their past serving as forced and rushed exposition, with flashback sequences that move so quickly, nothing of note is established, and there is no emotion behind anything happening. Strangely, there are some truly awkward distractions here, such as violinists playing the film’s score during a pivotal moment in Kora’s backstory as a former bodyguard for the princess of this universe. Perhaps as the rest of the film didn’t take itself so gravely seriously, a quirky choice like that would come across as fun, but here it is confusingly hilarious.
Still, the core issue here is that the inherent structure of Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver is clunky, trying its damnedest to make these characters interesting and worth rooting on, generally failing outside the performances from the respected ensemble. Sofia Boutella brings grit, resiliency, and strong physicality to the role, largely wasted inside empty spectacle and generic storytelling.
Meanwhile, Zack Snyder is already on press tours doing damage control that there is an R-rated cut of these two parts, that they are “parallel” experiences to what we have now, and essentially trying to recapture the Justice League Snyder-cut fervor that sometimes tipped over into gross toxicity. Regarding that project, his director’s cut did improve upon a colossal disaster. As for Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver and its predecessor, that doesn’t seem likely. Zack Snyder is telling us that we aren’t even watching his vision, even though the ending here is teasing more to come. At this point, it’s embarrassing, and the only one receiving scars is whoever wastes four hours of these movies.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
