REBEL MOON: PART ONE – A CHILD OF FIRE

Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 22, 2023

"It's the beginning of something," a character says in Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire, and that's a boldly ludicrous statement to be coming after about two hours of movie. Yes, co-writer/director Zack Snyder's wannabe epic of science-fiction prepares us for the absence of much resolution with its announcement is this is only the first half or so of a full story (The order in which the dual subtitles appear on screen, by the way, almost makes us wonder—and maybe worry, considering how little actually happens in this entry—that this is only the first part of the first half of the whole tale).

That makes it quite the surprise, then, to discover that the filmmaker barely gives us a setup by the end of this laborious affair. The vague and cryptic tone with which the character loads that "something" makes one wonder if the screenwriters are even certain of what's to come.

That's also a surprise, considering how simplistic and familiar the story's basic premise is. There's an authoritarian empire—sorry, imperium—with a dress code that's reminiscent of Earthbound military dictatorships of the 1940s and a massive ship, capable of ruining an entire planet like some kind of death-dealing star. Against this might power exists an alliance of rebels gathering resources and fighting back whenever they can, and on a remote world, a farmer is about to come face-to-face with this dark force and decide to join the fight.

Thankfully, the movie doesn't exactly take one-to-one inspiration from the films those descriptions suggest, although it's probably a group of studio attorneys who are most grateful for that fact. Snyder, along with co-screenwriters Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten, wears his inspirations on the movie's sleeves, pants legs, and pretty much any other figurative section of clothing that could fit so many homages, if one's generous, or rip-offs, if one isn't so much. One can find a bunch of other influences of famous pieces of science-fiction over the decades, as well as examples of fantasy and, since the movie that Snyder and company are primarily falling back on was based on one samurai film, a plot that apes a different one of those.

What it lacks, obviously, is an identity to call its own. Well, it also lacks interesting characters, storytelling that seems to be going anywhere, and much visual polish, but all of those absences feel like symptoms of that more significant issue.

The plot follows Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious farmer on an isolated moon (Some early shots of her plowing fields against the backdrop of a nearby ringed planet are fairly striking). She's a relative newcomer to this community, and soon enough the villains arrive, demand the entirety of the village's harvest, and kill their leader to prove they mean business. Kora kills some occupying soldiers, sending her and Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) to search for warriors who can defend the villagers when the baddies return.

Knowing audience members will rightly suspect that the two are joined by five others by a certain point in the story. Once one realizes the entirety of the plot here amounts to a recruiting expedition, it really is just a matter of counting down until they reach that magic number. The actual experience is about as rote, too.

The recruits are Charlie Hunnam as a scoundrel who appears to have a secret heart of gold, Djimon Hounsou as a disgraced rebel general, Doona Bae as a meditative warrior who wields energy-emitting blades, Staz Nair as a man capable of taming wild beasts, and Ray Fisher as a rebel leader who can make rousing speeches. All of them get one or two scenes to show off their skills, and we have to imagine the ones who make it through to the end, as well as the others' replacements, will do more of those things in the second installment. Even without seeing anything from the continuing/concluding chapter, it's clear Snyder has decided to put most of the storytelling weight on the sequel.

That means Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire just circles around the same pattern: the amassing group travels from one planet to another, seeks out a new recruit, gets into some fight, and starts the process over again. The locales are diverse in aesthetic, at least, but they all share a grim and dimly lit appearance that does the variety little favor. A lot of this looks murky, which is appropriate, considering the whole movie exists in the shadows of other—and better—pieces of inspiration.

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