Welcome back to the blog readers. If you know me well enough by now, you would know that I love science fiction films. Some of my favorites are science fiction films. The original Star Wars trilogy (1977-83) and Alien: Romulus (2024) from this year, among others. If you also know me well enough, you would know that I thought Rebel Moon (2023) completely sucked. I called it "a lazy, effortless Star Wars ripoff that does everything worse than it." By the way, you can read my review of the first film here. Would the second half be better, worse, or the same? Stick around to find out.
Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver was directed by Zack Snyder from a screenplay by Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten, and a story by Snyder. The film stars Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Skrein, Michael Huisman, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, Anthony Hopkins, Staz Nair, Fra Fee, and Cary Elwes. In the film, Kora and her new friends Gunnar, Nemesis, Titus, Milius, and Tarak return to Veldt to prepare her farming colony for an Imperium attack. Meanwhile, Admiral Noble is brought back to life and swears revenge on Kora for killing him.
Rebel Moon was probably one of, if not, the biggest disappointment of 2023 for me because those trailers looked good, damnit. And I was so pissed at Zack Snyder that I forewent watching this film from its release in April. And since then, R-rated director's cuts were released. If I wasn't going to watch them before, I definitely am not after this total trainwreck. The dialogue is probably worse than the first film, the performances and the characters are still as lifeless as ever, the worldbuilding present in the first film is gone, and STOP WITH THE FUCKING SLOW MOTION!
Most of the criticisms I had with the cast in the first film are present in this film. This is the second time that Sofia Boutella has led a film, and it is just as bad as it was in the first film. In fact, I feel as if she is trying too hard in this film to make herself seem engaged. Doona Bae supposedly plays a character that is stoic all the time, but I think there may have been some realness to that performance she gives. Djimon Hounsou is one of the best guys around, but not even he can salvage a halfway decent performance with the terrible script (although I will say that he legitimately tries a bit more in this film over the first). Not even the four lines Sir (SIR) Anthony Hopkins delivers as the robot Jimmy have any life to them. I cannot deal with this bullshit anymore Netflix.
Next up is the terrible dialogue and the horribly-written script. If you remember my review of the last film, I called the script and story "a bland amalgamation of the worst of Star Wars and Star Trek." (I paraphrased but you know what I mean) There is a whole lot more meaningless monologuing from all our characters (especially Hounsou's General Titus), and the words coming out of the mouths of the actors bear no weight. Plus, what happened to all the worldbuilding from the first film? That was absolutely the best part of it. None of that exists in this film and it comes off as boring and contrived in a lot of areas. Especially because this film only takes place in ONE FFUCKING LOCATION. Even the action scenes that I will talk about in a bit are not helped by the monologuing and horrible script. By the way, the evil soldiers are still just worse versions of Stormtroopers and you cannot deny it.
Finally, I have to talk about the action of this film because I definitely have thoughts about it. The previous film had little to no action and it really suffered for it. This film's entire second half is one big action set piece and it still suffers because it feels like visual noise: action with no emotional weight and no point. And one of the main reasons for it (and this is a film-wide issue) is the slow motion. Every other shot is in alow motion and it drags the film to unbearable heights. I don't need to see someone picking grain and turning it into a powdery-like substance in slo-mo. I don't need to see someone uncharacteristically shoot a gun multiple times in a single shot. The cinematic choices made in this film are questionable at best, and not ones I wish to see again.
In conclusion, Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver is another lazy, effortless Star Wars ripoff that does nothing further to prove itself to be original. Thank you all for reading, and until next time, fuck Rebel Moon. See y'all later.
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