The reviews are in for the first film in Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon sci-fi saga and… well, let’s just say that after the already sealed sequel, then maybe the rest of the much-vaunted multi-media and mutli-channel sci-fi saga is likely not happening. Not after this.
With 40 reviews in, the movie is sinking on Rotten Tomatoes at just 25% (4.1/10) and has an equally piss-poor 32/100 on Metacritic. Let’s get straight into it:
“A hugely expensive but uninspired ‘Star Wars’ knockoff with some thrilling action sequences, and some truly ugly moments that taint the entire thing.” –
William Bibbiani, TheWrap
“Another Zack Snyder movie, that deals with the same old issues. Quality production values with scatterbrained, incoherent storytelling. I feel like a broken record.” –
Valerie Complex, Deadline
“The film is too invested in table-setting to be fully enjoyed on its own, at times feeling more like a studio presentation deck than a piece of organic storytelling.”
Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times
“Snyder mistakes exposition for world-building, the lugubriously delivered reams of backstory removing the audience from the fantasy rather than immersing them in it.”
Charles Bramesco, Guardian
“This misbegotten attempt at creating a new out-of-this-world Snyderverse is merely a knockoff dressed up in its director’s stylistic signatures.”
Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
“That even after a reported 20 years in the making the film still feels fundamentally pointless isn’t just disappointing, it’s entirely bewildering.” –
Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph
“A movie that feels like a million isolated storyboards without a single thing welding them together.”
David Ehrlich, IndieWire
“Just seconds into the leaden sci-fi saga Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire, it’s clear the director is back to indulging his worst tendency for self-serious bombast.”
David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
“‘Rebel Moon,’ while eminently watchable, is a movie built so entirely out of spare parts that it may, in the end, be for Snyder cultists only.”
Owen Gleiberman, Variety
Ahhh well. This is a bit of a blow, as between Reacher season 2, Slow Horses season 3, and this, I had some Christmas viewing shaping up nicely.
Rebel Moon starts at a colony on the agricultural moon of Veldt on the galaxy’s edge. The peaceful is threatened by the armies of the tyrannical regent Belisarius (Ed Skrein) and the ferocious and all-powerful Imperium. An isolated young woman, who has her own history with the Imperium, sets out in search of warriors from other planets to fight the tyrannical armies.
The cast includes Sofia Boutella, Ed Skrein, Charlie Hunnam, Djimon Hounsou, Staz Nair, Bae Doona, Michiel Huisman, Jena Malone, Cary Elwes, Ray Fisher, Corey Stoll, Alfonso Herrera, Cleopatra Coleman, Stuart Martin, Kingston Foster, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Fra Fee and the voice of Anthony Hopkins.
Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child of Fire is in cinemas now and hits Netflix next Friday. Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver will be released on the service on April 19th, 2024. Director’s cuts of both were expected, but with reviews like this everyone might just quietly make it all go away.
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