Review of the film “Rebel Moon—Part Two: The Scargiver”: blatantly unoriginal

Zack Snyder is adept at capturing the essence of a visually stunning moment. But no matter how beautiful a fake flower appears, it cannot smell. The language and storyline reveal that the director spends little to no time developing the emotional heart of his tale, despite his skill at staging scenes with rich visuals and captivating actors.

Part Two of Rebel Moon: If The Scargiver had only been self-aware and humorous, it might have been a fantastic spoof of the space-opera genre. The movie is so simple that we almost expect it to surprise us at any point, but it never does. Instead, what we get is a narrative that seems to have been thrown together the day of shooting so that Snyder could combine many action sequences into a seamless whole.

Anthony Hopkins provides a voice-over narration at the beginning of the movie that summarizes the events of the first picture. The narrative is a hilarious exposition dump full of made-up science fiction terms. A Child of Fire, the first installment of Rebel Moon, received harsh criticism for being unoriginal. We reasoned that the sequel may not have the same issues as the first. However, what we experience is a two-hour déjà vu. In some way, even the adversary from the previous movie—who is represented as dying—returns. The narrative, the reasons, and the location are all the same. Though they seem somewhat different, the characters’ experiences from the previous movie don’t seem to have had a significant impact on them. Sofia Boutella’s Kora gets a new hairstyle, while Anthony Hopkins’s robot Jimmy is decked out in a flashy space reindeer horn headpiece. The character’s development is still visible.

After all, film is a visual medium, but Snyder is not just following the dictum “show don’t tell” religiously; rather, he is a zealot who has carelessly given himself up to this cinematic aesthetic and refuses to comprehend the underlying complexities of his faith. The sequence when the rebels narrate memories from their history is the movie’s signature scene and it effectively sums up its main flaws. The sequence, which is meant to be a montage of memories, has performers giving sincere performances. The scenario seems lifeless, however, because of the way it’s set up and the corporate conference vibe it has—everyone begins talking one after the other. Djimon Hounsou is the one who is most impacted by the emotionally illiterate cinematic language of this picture. He is so plainly meant to be the leader who inspires everyone with a stirring speech just before combat. Because of how cartoonish Hounsou’s character design is, you can always anticipate a speech when you see him taking a long breath.

Part Two of Rebel Moon: The Scargiver is a tiresome remake of an original movie that wasn’t all that remarkable in the first place. We may have had an unforgettable, captivating, cinematic experience—pretty much the exact opposite of what we ended up with—had the stunning images and the outstanding production design had a compelling tale to support them.