Sunday, April 21, 2024

My Review of Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)

 


Written by Shay Hatten And Kurt Johnstad And Zack Snyder 
Directed by Zack Snyder

Kora: "Their nightmare is you and I fighting together."
Jimmy: "You must know, you cannot win."

Has it really been four months since the first part of this wannabe Star Wars saga? Yes, it has and in that time, we've also Dune Part II finally get released too. Okay, enough snarking, review time, lads.

Four months might have passed between releases of this series but time has moved slower here. First of all, secondary baddie Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) was revealed to be alive and needless to say, he was determined to get both the Scargiver and nuke the planet/moon Veldt and not entirely in that order.

The Scargiver being deserter soldier, Kora/Arthelais (Sofia Boutella), who with her own band of misfits and warriors were going to be a massive pain in the backside for Noble and still largely unseen Regent Balisarius (Fra Free). I mean, they're really holding off that inevitable reunion between Kora and Balisarius for a reason, but the little we actually saw here left a lot to be desired.

Kora's crew again comprised of General Titus (Djimon Hounsou), skilled assassin Nemesis (Doona Bae), slave Prince Tarak (Staz Nair), soldier Millius (Elise Duffy) and humble farmer, Gunnar (Michiel Huisman). Yeah, it's them along with Sam (Charlotte Maggi), Aris (Sky Yang) and Jimmy the mechanical Knight (Anthony Hopkins) along with glorified redshirts to keep Veldt from getting massacred by Noble and company.

The first of this movie felt like a lot of padding. Between an overemphasised montage of wheat collecting and well intended flashbacks sloppily done, I felt like some of the first half could've been shorter. As for the second half, I had the opposite issue to be honest.

If the first half dragged like hell to get to the main battles, the second half almost went overboard with it. Yes, it descended into mindless violence, certain characters died and others that were assumed to be dead. Well, one of them turned out to be alive and there's the hook for the next movie.

- The director cuts for both parts will be released on Netflix later in the summer. You'll get six hours of this.
- Kora "killed" Princess Issa in flashbacks and I actually thought the character was going to regenerate. The romance with Kora and Gunnar was very rushed.
- I did like the various banners that Sam made for the characters.  It seemed like a secondary romance between her and Aris was being hinted at.
- The Bloodaxes have done sweet naff all to help so far. Maybe the cuts are where they're better utilised.
- Zack Snyder has mentioned wanting this to be a six movie saga. Now whether Netflix let that happen is another thing.
- Chronology: Essentially where the first movie left off. Not a lot of time passed either. 

Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver should've been a marked improvement on an underwhelming first entry. Look, I've seen worse movies but this wasn't good. It should've been but it's all over the freaking place and if I were Netflix, I'd be hesitant to continue this franchise unless major improvements were made to it.

Rating: 6 out of 10

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