Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver picks up directly where part 1 finishes. The heroes, having defeated the bad guy in part 1, return to the village on Veldt to help prepare for the arrival of the empi… I mean the Motherworld. Big bad Admirable Noble (Ed Skrein) is alive after seemingly perishing in Part 1, and he’s dead set on revenge. Kora (Sofia Boutella) must wrestle with her past as she helps get the village ready for an attack.
Even after the poor showing of Rebel Moon Part 1, I was still holding hope for the second film. I was hoping that Zack Snyder and company would figure out the issues that plagued the first film and zero in on a focus for the film. And, surprisingly, the first couple scenes weren’t actually that bad. Practical effects and a noticeable change in tone felt refreshing. But then, everything quickly settled in and reverted back to the previous installment’s issues.
Before I dive into the film itself, I really have to say it’s so insulting to moviegoers to release a film and immediately begin talking about your “Director’s Cut” version. This is what happened after Rebel Moon Part 1, and again after Part 2. According to those who saw an early premier, Snyder came out after the showing and immediately began touting how the director’s cut of Rebel Moon Part 2 is great and adds an extra hour and fixes all the issues. Then why did you even release the film in the first place? First off, the movie is way too long anyways, but secondly, can you even make a movie within the time constraints that every single other director working in the world does?
It would be like if I went to McDonalds and ordered a big mac, and all i got was the bun and cheese and the cashier, upon giving me my crappy food, insisted I come back next week because they’re releasing the rest of the toppings and it’s going to make everything SO much better. No one should be okay with this practice and Zack Snyder should be ashamed he’s even touting this idea so heavily.
As for the substance of Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver, it feels totally incomplete as a movie. In fact, it felt like I was watching exclusively the back half of what the first movie should have been. It’s a 2-hour film that, by the half hour mark, felt like it was building to the big climax. In actuality, I think that Snyder should have combined the two films to create one 2-hour journey that may have actually worked better.
As it stands there’s just too much time spent on nonsense to make it interesting. A lot of time is spent on the farmers farming, and halfway through this film the main characters sit around and talk backstory. That’s something the audience needed in film one, not when film two is almost done. Even the action feels overdone at times. Although I will admit, the scenes on the King’s Gaze with Kora and Gunnar were the best parts of the film. Coincidentally, these sections also had the least amount of “Snyder-fication” in them.
Most of the movie, though, feels unfinished. The CGI is pretty awful, to the point where it felt like I was watching a video game cutscene from 2011 when ships were flying in space. Shots often felt blurry around the edges, and I had to view on two different devices to make sure it wasn’t me. And, after promising to use Jimmy the robot more in this film, he gets a whole 4 scenes of note, including the biggest Jimmy-ex-machina I’ve ever seen.
In reality, if you’ve seen Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, or Star Wars, then you’ve seen this movie. There’s absolutely zero unique qualities to it. In fact, if they had just titled it “Seven Samurai in Space” it would match. And, to be quite honest, the plot idea that a massive intergalactic empire would even bother shaking down a small outer world farm for it’s resources is laughable. As soon as they said no, they’d just blow it up and move to the next one. It’s as if we are to believe this is the only farm in the galaxy. It’s dumb.
Final Thoughts
I have not been so disappointed in a film series in quite a long time. Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver takes everything that was wrong with the first film and does nothing to fix them. The film overruses the “Snyder Slow Mo” and feels totally incomplete. If you’re going to make a Part 2, it has to stand alone as it’s own film too, much like Dune Part 2 did earlier this year. The film ends with 2 massive deus ex machina conclusions and then has the audacity to set up further films with a cliffhanger ending. As if there will ever be a Rebel Moon 3 in the first place. It’s insulting to the genre for something to be this unoriginal and bad.
