Film Review – Rebel Moon (2023)

During the London premiere of Rebel Moon, Zack Snyder talked about how he has virtually been working on this film for quite a long time. It seems like a lot of work and thought went into the production of this movie, as the possible start of an entirely new series and introduction to a whole new universe that, unlike many of the director’s previous movies, is not rooted in any pre-existing franchises. As a fan of science fiction action movies, I was expecting a lot from Rebel Moon, a film that had access to a big budget and great talent to deliver its story.

Rebel Moon is an epic space drama film distributed by Netflix and directed by Zack Snyder who is also credited as the writer, producer, and director of photography of the film. The film starts on a harmless village on the moon of Veldt, threatened by the army of the Motherworld, which controls the entire universe through the armed forces controlled by Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee). Kora (Sofia Boutella), a skilled warrior living in the village, takes it upon herself to defend her home from the forces of the Imperium by fighting against the Motherworld and recruiting other warriors to do so, including Titus (Dijmon Hounsou), a former general, the mercenary pilot Kai (Charlie Hunnam), her friend Gunnar (Michiel Hisman), the cyborg swordmaster Nemesis (Doona Bae), and Tarak (Staz Nair), a skilled blacksmith.

A lot of Rebel Moon is confusing at worst and mediocre at best. There were a few interesting ideas that the film but most of them were only touched upon and not explored properly: it would have been interesting to see more of the artificial intelligence soldiers and how their consciousness may fit with the larger system of this universe. Similarly, a lot of the characters, particularly Kora, have a very interesting premise but are hardly developed enough. In the end, they remain two-dimensional as the audience does not get to see nearly enough character development from the main characters.

The biggest issue with Rebel Moon is its worldbuilding or, rather, its delivery of the worldbuilding information. A lot of this film, from its expositionary voiceover at the very beginning, was focused on explaining to us the necessary information to understand the events of the film but this makes the film lose the focus on the actual narrative of the film for the majority of it. As a film that introduces the audience to an entirely new universe and franchise, there is a lot that it needs to establish but a lot of the information is shared in a very flat, and somewhat lazy, way rather than through conflict or suspense.

For a film that focuses so heavily on worldbuilding, I was also too confused about some details of the Motherworld’s government that is immediately introduced as the enemy but whose origin is not truly explored, or at least not yet. Similarly, the geography in this world is not clear, which would have been fascinating to explore as a lot of this film features different locations within the universe and a lot of travelling. I also felt like Rebel Moon from a huge universal conflict between good and bad to the singular characters, thus reducing them to means for the larger story. On the contrary, other science fiction sagas, like Star Wars, tend to do the opposite by focusing on everyday characters who end up getting involved in a conflict bigger than themselves.

In a day and age where it constantly feels like every action sci-fi film attempts to be the new Star Wars – even the actual Star Wars franchise – Rebel Moon feels very derivative from the Star Wars saga. While Snyder did admit its very clear inspiration in the Star Wars franchise, some of the scenes and character tropes feel entirely too familiar and predictive for those of us who are familiar with Star Wars films. This ultimately hurts the final product as it makes the film hard to stand on its own and creates a comparison that Rebel Moon can’t win with one of the most successful movie franchises of the same genre.

While it is true the film struggles through its narrative with awkward slow-motion scenes and expositionary sequences, I have to praise its visuals and sound design, which helped create the aesthetic and atmosphere of this new universe we are discovering as the movie goes on. However, I cannot help but ask myself how these two elements will transfer to the small screen. I was lucky enough to see this film in IMAX but Rebel Moon will be distributed through Netflix, which means the majority of the audience will only see this film on a much smaller screen where its two most impressive elements, the cinematography and sound, end up inevitably lost.

I did also like the final sequence as it finally felt like a payoff to the whole build-up of the first two hours of the film which to me felt very much like an introductory first act rather than an actual film. The end of the last act shows us what Rebel Moon does best: the action-packed moments accompanied by a tense soundtrack that finally delivers the urgency that was missing during the first two-thirds of the film. I wish we had seen more of that during the film rather than spending too much time on a set-up that could have probably been a lot shorter if the film had not been split into two separate parts.

While watching Rebel Moon, I kept waiting for the film to get better, to truly grab my attention and make me care for its characters. Maybe Rebel Moon Part 2 will be able to do this to come out as the second instalment can finally focus on developing the story after getting all the worldbuilding out of the way in Part 1. Unfortunately, I think Part 1 is only worthwhile for the aesthetic of the new universe it creates but it moves far too slowly to justify its runtime or split into two parts.