Rebel Moon Part 2 review: A slow-mo sci-fi slog

Insurgent Moon: Half 2 – The Scargiver is an empty feast. It is a relentless onslaught of explosions, sci-fi tropes and meaningless exposition that quantities to nothing. And but by some means it is nonetheless higher than the primary movie in Zack Snyder’s wannabe sci-fi epic franchise for Netflix, Insurgent Moon: Half 1 – A Youngster of Hearth. (What do these titles actually imply? Who cares.)

With the entire boring table-setting full, Snyder is ready to let his true skills soar in Insurgent Moon: Half 2 by delivering countless battles crammed with slow-motion motion and heroic poses. It appears to be like cool, I simply want it added as much as one thing. Something.

Spoilers forward for Insurgent Moon: Half 2.

In case you by some means missed the primary Insurgent Moon movie, the essential setup is that it is Star Wars meets The Seven Samurai. Sofia Boutella stars as Kora, a former elite soldier of an evil empire who’s hiding out in an all-too idyllic farming village, simply planting and harvesting her days away. When a bunch of army baddies kills the chief of the village and begins threatening a younger woman, Kora goes on a murdering spree (in protection!), leaving the neighborhood open to a retaliatory assault.

She spends the primary film recruiting potential warriors to defend the village, together with a fallen gladiator (Djimoun Hounsou) and a bad-ass swordswoman (Doona Bae). (Their names are Titus and Nemesis, respectively, however these do not actually matter as a result of the characters are paper skinny.)

Full disclosure: I attempted writing a evaluate for the primary Insurgent Moon and simply gave up in disgust. It was a surprisingly boring epic, a lot in order that it took me a number of days to observe with out falling asleep. By the tip, I used to be solely left with a sense of dread, realizing that there was nonetheless one other two hours of Insurgent Moon forward of me.

It is considerably empty reward, however not less than I did not go to sleep throughout The Scargiver. Principally, that is as a result of movie truly having a way of momentum and much more motion. You’ll be able to flip off your mind and benefit from the fairly footage, very similar to you could possibly for Snyder’s Sucker Punch, Justice League and Watchmen adaptation. He is extra a stylist than a pure storyteller, however often Snyder’s visuals, equivalent to a baffling montage of our heroes harvesting wheat, could be nearly poetic.

It is only a disgrace that I did not care a lot concerning the movie’s characters or any facet of its story. James Gunn’s Guardian’s of the Galaxy trilogy made us fall in love with a band of misfits and screwups, with storylines that instantly led to their private and emotional progress. The crew in Insurgent Moon, as an alternative, really feel like cardboard cutouts from higher motion pictures, and the general plot feels compelled (there’s even setup for an additional movie by the tip).

Hounsou tries to promote the pathos of Titus together with his eyes, however he can solely achieve this a lot. And whereas Bae’s warrior lady exudes cool (and has a really compelling flashback), she’s principally wasted when the motion actually heats up. Then there’s Jimmy, a robotic voiced by Anthony Hopkins, who’s briefly launched within the first movie and pops up for a couple of minutes right here to kick butt. Why? It does not matter. In some way that character can also be essential sufficient to function the narrator for each Insurgent Moon movies (however actually it appears Snyder simply wished Hopkins’ voice including gravitas).

Maybe the one actual saving grace for Insurgent Moon: Half 2, very similar to the primary movie, is Ed Skrein because the villainous Atticus Noble. As a sadistic baddie, he is actually nothing new, however Skrein’s heightened surroundings chomping makes the character fascinating to observe. The place Darth Vader exudes a peaceful sense of dread, Skrein’s Noble is entertainingly chaotic, just like the Joker crossed with Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds. He simply has a whole lot of enjoyable being dangerous — that is one thing!

Given how standard the primary movie was (in accordance with Snyder and Netflix, anyway), we’ll possible see extra Insurgent Moon down the road. Snyder beforehand stated he’d love to do a six-hour director’s lower of each movies, and he lately advised Radio Instances that he’d prefer to stretch the Insurgent Moon collection out to 4 or six movies. In some way, that simply seems like a menace.