Rebel Moon (2023)

Rebel Moon is Zack Snyder's attempt to create a sci-fi franchise. In this, he will probably be successful, for no other reason than Netflix, bankrolling his films, has more money than creative sensibilities. The film also provides adequate background noise for those who like to stream while doing other, more entertaining tasks. Like learning how to be a cooper (check out this video to learn to make a wooden bucket, like a real cooper do). 

The film is a reskin of Battle Beyond the Stars (itself a remake of Seven Samurai). Evil space nazis show up in orbit around a farm planet, filled with people who have never invented hygiene (even farmers can wash their faces - I'm pretty sure most do). The antagonist - Villain O'Badguy or something - kills the town elder, tells the locals he's coming back for all their food and leaves a squad of comically evil goons behind. The goons try to sexually assault a farm girl - as goons often do - and are killed off by Punch Blaster. Punch is a former space goon, turned dirt farmer for some reason. Punch decides to head out and recruit mercs (maybe seven of them...hmmm) to protect the planet. She finds a washed up space goon general, a chick with swords, a space prince who talks to Harry Potter monsters and some other randos. None of these supporting players are given any chance to develop beyond a two-sentence casting instruction. Except, that is for Jax Teller, Space Smuggler. He has just enough development, so that when he betrays Punch, a handful of viewers might feel a thing.

Anyway, Villain and Punch have. a showdown, Punch wins, her and the Band of Bland return to Farm World and some robot shows up wearing antlers. Oh, and Villian is revived, so that he can continue to be a Villain and not just a corpse. Yay?

Rebel Moon, like most of Zack Snyder's work is mediocre. He works best when he is not the writer and when he has other people on his team who are not there to just indulge him. Films like this and Army of the Dead show what happens when these conditions are not present. Sloppy plotting. Flat, stereotypical characters. Poorly blocked action sequences and an over-reliance on slow motion to try and create a comic book feel - oh, wait, I'm an adult - graphic novel feel. Better. 

Rebel Moon also suffers from being blatantly derivative of its source material, without adding anything other than a female lead. The problem with this is that Punch is a former space nazi who  is not on a redemption arc - she seems to be sad that she couldn't protect a space princess, but that's far from being her most pressing problem, given she was a space nazi - and who is portrayed by Sofia Boutelle, an actress of limited range. Her only expression seems to be vaguely constipated. Not that the rest of the cast is any better. They are either saddled with cliched characters (Charlie Hunnam's Kai) or, even worse, no character at all (everyone else). 

Zack Snyder has made some entertaining films. Dawn of the Dead, 300 and The Watchmen are solid movies. His other work has bits and pieces of inspired images in the midst of a lot of nonsensical slop and action figure sensibilities. Unfortunately, Rebel Moon is mostly slop. 

Rating: 1/5