Rebel Moon Pretty but Lacks a Great Story

Zack Snyder is something of a legend in term of visual feasts on the screen. Comic and hero stories have a distinctive style and clearly identify it as his work. Batman looks very different coming from Snyder than it does coming from Tim Burton. Nothing is quite a visual as 300. He has his fans who support anything and everything he does. Even when it is not a box office success, he enjoys a cult status that has some people return over and over again.

Rebel Moon, according to Snyder himself, owes a lot to westerns, Kurosawa, Star Wars and a whole lot of sci-fi and fantasy. Nothing wrong with that. Still, it is hard to stand out. Star Wars, Dune and the Matrix all revolve around someone being the chosen one with special powers. Those three movies though managed to breakthrough and make you care about the characters even if the story was a familiar one. 

It is said there are 7 basic plots, 36 possible story dramatic situations that a creative work can take. Much like a Harlequin romance, a basic formula exists that if followed will reach a successful conclusion. Snyder wants our heroine in Rebel Moon to be the glue for a rebellion against an evil empire. To muddy the waters, we find out our heroine has been hiding for years for her complicit past. Immediately, this makes her character different from the Star Wars type where Luke was an innocent. Even in the Matrix, Neo, despite being a hacker, is not complicit in the controlling forces or even aware of them.

Kora, played by Sofia Bouetella, has a tragic beginning of loss and has been indoctrinated as a child soldier. This isn't a bad way to go. In Star Wars, The Force Awakens, Finn is a stormtrooper who can not stomach the brutality of the regime. In the two Rebel Moon movies, we learn that Kora only regrets her part in the killing of the royal family. Her escape into hiding, is when the Imperium implicates her entirely of the crime.

Hiding out in a village living a simple life is not a redemption story to this point. It is a Nazi in Argentina after WWII story. From the point of view of the viewer, while there may be sympathy for being child soldier, the crimes cannot be overlooked. I can not be the only one who thought this. 

I addition, the Imperium requiring so much from one hamlet in combatting rebels is just a bit of a stretch. I can imagine the warship that the Imperium has very little need of such a paltry amount of grain. And one tiny village on an entire planet warrants that much attention? Movies of this nature generally require a McGuffin to propel the story forward. The McGuffin being the thing that everyone is seeking. Where is it here? The village and its grain just doesn't seem that important.

Almost every part of the movie is beautiful to watch. Visual effects are as flashy as you will find in sci-fi. There are a number of actors cast who are quite capable but never enough to work with. There are already plans for a third movie so it shows that Snyder continues to have fans and that people are definitely craving a good space opera. Perhaps they know what they are doing with Rebel Moon but I found I was already forgetting a lot from the previous movie.