Rebel Moon: Part 2 – The Scargiver, on top of having the most needlessly try-hard title I’ve seen in quite some time, is the latest attempt by director Zack Snyder to break away from the creative shackles of pre-existing IP and fan expectations that plagued his stint on the DC Universe and create something wholly his own with full creative freedom. Granted, that “wholly his own” thing is a riff on Star Wars, but you know, baby steps.
The first installment, subtitled Part 1 – A Child of Fire, suffered from poor pacing, often atrocious dialogue, and a severe lack of character development, but did manage to deliver some stellar action scenes, strong visuals, and a wide variety of locations and creatively designed creatures. Now that the story has reached its climax in Part 2, have they managed to fix the issues of its predecessor and deliver a satisfying conclusion? Sadly the answer is mostly no. Let’s talk about why.
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Rebel Moon Part 2 Plot
Our story begins almost immediately after Part 1, with Kora and her band of rebels returning to the farming moon of Veldt seemingly victorious against the Imperium. However, their celebration is short-lived when they learn that not only is Admiral Noble still alive, but that he’s bringing the full force of the Imperium fleet and army down onto Veldt in just a few days.
With no time to waste, the rebels must quickly turn Veldt’s humble farmers into an elite fighting force in order to save their world, stop the Imperium, and maybe finally redeem themselves along the way.
Rebel Moon Part 2 Critique
In much the same way that Parts 1 and 2 of Rebel Moon are two halves of the same story, Rebel Moon: Part 2 – The Scargiver is about half of a good movie. Whatever else you can say about Zack Snyder, his visuals and action are always top-notch and that’s very much the case here. Gun fights, spaceship battles, totally-not-lightsaber duels, it’s all here and it’s all remarkably well put together with impressive VFX work and stellar fight choreography.
And even outside the action, the visuals are very strong. While there’s not as much location variety as the previous film and the fun space creatures are sadly nowhere to be found, the imagery used to frame Veldt and the design work on the various ships and weapons is very striking and rather creative. And while Tom Holkenborg may not be John Williams, his score for the film is suitably epic and fits the piece rather nicely.
Sadly, that’s about all the positives I have to say as Rebel Moon: Part 2 is honestly a slog to get through. Just like in the previous film, these characters have no real personality or interplay with each other save for listing off their D+D character sheets and sad backstories in the same overly self-serious monotone over and over again. At one point, there’s a scene where they literally list off all the heroes’ supposed major traits and character arcs as they’re about to go into battle and all I could think was “I sure wish we could’ve SEEN that.”
The film’s pacing is also glacially slow; spending the entire first half on characters standing around, having terrible repetitive dialogue, and doing farm work that apparently counts as war training before dedicating the second half on one action scene after another. Though sad action does admittedly provide the film’s major bright spot whenever it’s not interrupted by these cardboard cutouts of a wasted cast opening their mouths.
But the biggest problem is that there’s ultimately no reason to care about anything that’s happening. The characters are boring so there’s no reason to be invested in who lives or dies. The world is derivative so there’s no reason to want to learn more about it. And you can’t even get invested in seeing the story conclude because it ends on a tease for the first of Snyder’s apparently six planned sequels which are starting to sound more like a threat than a promise.
In Conclusion
In my opinion, the worst thing any movie can be is boring. Especially when it’s a bombastic sci-fi action film directed by someone with as bold and unique of a stylistic sensibility as Zack Snyder. And while Rebel Moon: Part 2 – The Scargiver isn’t the worst movie I’ve seen this year or even the worst Snyder film, it is without a doubt boring. The exception to this is of course the genuinely excellent action scenes, but they come in far too late to make a real difference and ring hollow when the people enacting them are so utterly dull.
I want to care about these characters, but I don’t. I want to be invested in this world, but I’m not. I want to be swept into the grand scale and epic action, but far too often I found myself looking at the progress bar and lamenting to myself about how much of this thing I still had left to watch. Maybe that three-hour director’s cut will be better (I doubt it, but stranger things have happened) but for now, I am thoroughly disappointed by Rebel Moon‘s squandered potential.
5/10
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