Review | Rebel Moon Part One: A Child Of Fire (2023)

Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child Of Fire is a hot mess. Visually speaking, it is a beautiful film while the action sequences are immersive. The story itself was just bland.

Zack Snyder steps into the science fiction arena with his ambitious new movie REBEL MOON – PART ONE: A CHILD OF FIRE. But can his vision of a galaxy far, far away emerge from the shadow of STAR WARS? Let’s find out.

SYNOPSIS

When a peaceful colony on the edge of the galaxy finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius, they dispatch Kora, a young woman with a mysterious past, to seek out warriors from neighboring planets to help them take a stand.

REVIEW

Rebel Moon is a hot mess. Visually speaking, it is a beautiful film while the action sequences are immersive. The costumes and set design worked well. The character work, dialogue, and storytelling, however, were weak. The universe was intriguing and evoked curiosity but the movie did not spend nearly enough time with world-building. The story itself was just bland.

There is very little character development in the film which one would expect from a movie taking place in (at least) two parts. The movie did not make me care about any of the characters, except (maybe) the main protagonist. There were characters in the film that I would liked to have learned more about. Specifically, the rebel character Darrian Bloodaxe (played by Ray Fisher) and his sister. Unfortunately, none of the characters were captivating to me. The performances themselves were solid but only to the extent that they performed what was written for them, which was not great. I don’t feel like the pacing was done well either. It felt like the journey to recruit the various allies was rushed.

The villains were cartoonish. Much like the protagonists, I just didn’t care about any of them.

NEGATIVE REVIEWS

Many of the negative reviews of Rebel Moon mention the fact that the story was unoriginal because this was a derivative of Star Wars. I do not have a problem with that fact. At this point in existence, everything is a derivative of something else. Heck, Star Wars itself was a movie that borrowed themes from Arthurian legend, Frank Herbert, and Japanese films such as The Hidden Fortress and The Seven Samurai. If that was the only problem with the movie, there wouldn’t be a problem at all.

Love it or hate it, this movie was very Snyder-esque.

VERDICT

I went into the movie with low expectations so to say that the movie did not deliver my expectations would not be accurate. While I would not necessarily recommend this movie to anyone, I would NOT at the very least tell someone to absolutely NOT watch it. I think with something like this someone else might watch it and have a very different take on it than I do, as evidenced by the plethora of positive reviews. I’m just saying that I was not impressed. and I am glad that this movie was not a theatrical release.   

Go check it out and form your own opinion. You might like it. Or, like me, you might not.

REBEL MOON – PART ONE: A CHILD OF FIRE is streaming on Netflix now.