Great review:
https://www.sfgate.com/streaming/article/netflix-rebel-moon-review-18590021.php
That’s a shit review, full of hyperbole and some truly shitty writing.
Personally, I find it hard to parody something that’s already an obvious self-parody, but some people like that sort of thing.
The trailer for part 2 seems like a complete rip off of the Seven Samurai or the Magnificent Seven.
Part 1 too.
Eh. Maybe a bit hyperbolic, but it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen too so I won’t be that harsh on it.
Part 2 dropped on Netflix at the end of last week - I’m watching it right now and so far I only have two things to say…
- The expository narration at the start of the movie ended with the ‘…or so he believed’ thing. Sloppy cliché
- Midway, there’s a battle scene, followed by some slow motion footage of various things, accompanied by, I swear it, a near-exact note-for-note copy of the ‘Funeral’ track from Serenity - sad strings and everything.
Well, the first one ripped off almost all the other major SF franchises, so why not move in on some of the smaller ones?
Does anyone get space herpes?
Part 2 doesn’t seem quite so pick-n-mix derivative as the first one did, although it is quite laughably unoriginal - basically: a few elite fighters (from part 1) team up with a small village of inexperienced, pacifist yokels to defend Swedish Farm Planet against a vast, powerful and vicious invading force of Space Fascists that has them outgunned and outnumbered to an absurd degree.
The Guardian had an amusing and fair review. He gave it 3/5 stars, noting
The comparably quieter moments all lead into an extended battle sequence that fuses last-stand westerns with a cartoon version of first world war trench warfare, and brings to mind overloaded early-2000s digital-cinema spectacles like Attack of the Clones or The Matrix Revolutions. (If that makes you shudder, subtract one star from this review’s rating. If you couldn’t stand A Child of Fire, might as well subtract two or three.)
And in summary,
Rebel Moon almost certainly didn’t need to be two multiple-cut movies. It probably could have gotten by as zero. But as a playground for Snyder’s favorite bits of speed-ramping, shallow-focusing and pulp thievery, it’s harmless, sometimes pleasingly weird fun.
Despite my better judgment, I ended up watching the first and thought it was one of stupidest movies I’ve ever seen, so I guess I fall in the 0-1 stars range. Yet I’ll probably hate-watch the new one in a bout of weakness.
This is me.
I’m looking forward to seeing some more astral energy crepitating.
I vote Battle Beyond the Stars as the best space opera remake of 7 Samurai (etc.) ever made. So, they got a pretty high bar if they want to beat that. Esp. since Robert Vaughn is dead and using AI to put him in this version as well might not be allowed.
I finished watching Rebel Moon, Part II. There wasn’t any crepitating astral energy, but there was a trilling Krypteian blade (according to the subtitles).
The biggest laughs (for me):
- The slow-motion grain harvesting with the quasi-Enya music in the background.
- The dudes shoveling space coal in the engine room of the space dreadnought.
- The drawn-out death scene of one character staring silently at a child for what seemed like several minutes before keeling over.
Yeah it was sort of a master class of things I hate in sci fy movies.
Why did the Evil Empire have such a hard on for that planet in the first place. How much strategic significance can the amount of grain a village can harvest in three days by hand have to a galactic empire?
I would also put that at the top of the very very long list of plot holes in the movie.
One thing surprised me: I was sure that the blond village girl was going to bring someone back to life, revealing that she’s really Princess Issa. I guess I’ll have to wait for the very unlikely possibility of a sequel if I want to see Chekhov’s gun go off.