WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
Zack Snyder’s assault on science fiction continues! I underestimated his ability to make something worse than Rebel Moon Part 1, but he has succeeded!
Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver makes an astoundingly little headway in two hours. The first hour is dedicated to montages and flashbacks, and the second half is an overly complicated fight sequence with TOTALLY original stunts and explosions.
The movie starts with our remaining heroes returning to their dirt farm village. The grateful townsfolk prepare a feast for them, even though they’re poor and have established (in the last movie) that they don’t have much food. The town is at ease, believing the bad guy is dead and won’t return. Big reveal, the Imperium used some Darth Vader Matrix technology to bring him back from the dead. In preparation for the bad guys, the farmers farm their grain and learn to fight in about three days. There are some great montages, and it seems to be sunset all day on… uh… Veldt. I think that’s what it’s called. Snyder always ensures a flare of light across the screen, whether from an engine or the sun. And of course, on par with the last movie, everything was out of focus.
Well, you can’t have a good montage without a great song to go with it! Rebel Moon 2 blesses its viewers with “Far From,” or at least the subtitles called it that. To add insult to injury, all of Rebel Moon’s music sucked. Thank God for montages, though. The citizens of Veldt managed to build a giant underground trench in about three minutes! Once that was done, our heroes sat around a table and shared flashbacks. Nothing too interesting, but we got to see the Sith samurai lady chop her hands off. An earlier flashback showed us a glimpse into Kora’s (the main character) past when she killed the mystic princess of the universe. During that scene, a space orchestra was sitting in the background for some reason. I think it was a new low for Rebel Moon.
The whole movie was incredibly boring. I found myself often wondering how soon I could stop watching. I wasn’t sure if Kora’s love interest was even a character for a while. The problem with the characters that died doing something heroic is that we don’t even know who half of these people are. It also didn’t help that a bearded good guy (who died) looked the same as a bearded bad guy.
Eventually, we arrive at the movie’s highlight: the fight scene. More slow-mo, as usual. Lightsaber battles, stormtroopers who can’t aim, etc. The sequence was on a giant spaceship that eventually fell to the ground. Once it started falling, everything inside slid down in a manner that wasn’t reminiscent of Revenge of the Sith. Nope. Not at all.
I think there was something else I wanted to complain about, but I don’t remember what it was. I suppose that’s a complaint in and of itself. The movie was so bad I can’t even remember what was bad about it. Oh, wait, now I remember! I was confused when the droid showed up to the battle. The minute he appeared, everyone stopped fighting for some reason, and then he went slow-mo, killed a bunch of people, and blew up a tachikoma.
Rebel Moon Part 2 ended by forcefully foreshadowing Part 3. Every living character seemed to repeat the same line: “We’re gonna fight the bad guys and save the princess that everyone thought was dead!” That’s not what they said, but I think it would have been better if they did. Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver is available for streaming on Netflix, and Snyder has announced that Part 3 is in development. This movie is for you if you want something to laugh at and hate-watch. Otherwise, avoid Rebel Moon at all costs.