Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire

Movie Review

Rebel Moon?

Atticus Noble does not like the title of this film; not one bit. He is definitely anti-rebel. If a Star Wars movie was playing at the local galactic multiplex, he’d root for Darth Vader. If David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” came up on his battleship radio, Atticus would shoot the radio with a vaporizer. If had had a son who refused to eat his turnips, Atticus would throw the kid into an outer-rim cobalt mine until he ate those turnips and liked them.

Why, as a loyal admiral in the service of the Motherland’s Imperium, it’s his job to stomp out rebellions—and he stomps them out with a certain sadistic relish. And if there’s a movie titled, in part, Rebel Moon, well, he’s going to fly straight into that movie and put a stop to any sort of moonish rebellion in the offing. He’s not going to be a party to any rebellious moons, no matter the context. No sirree.

But when he arrives at said moon, a satellite called Veldt, he must be a little disappointed that the quiet farmers there don’t seem more … rebellious.

Oh, if Atticus had bothered to read the screenplay, he would’ve known that one farmer—Gunnar, he of the perpetual two-day scruff of a beard and blow-dried hair—has been selling a bit of excess grain to the galaxy’s real rebels. But Atticus is not a man who likes to read. Outside the movie title, Atticus has only rumor and guesswork to go on.

So Atticus must be pleased when village leader, Sindri, says that the village doesn’t have any excess grain to sell to the Motherland. Sounds like rebellion, Atticus thinks. And when Gunnar tentatively disagrees with Sindri and suggests that, well, they actually might spare a few bushels—well, that’s all Atticus needs to hear. Clearly, Sindri’s the rebel on this moon. So Atticus thwacks the guy to death with his cane.

Problem solved, right? No more Rebel Moon in this movie. Zack Snyder can just return to botching Justice League films now, and Atticus is free to seek out other rebels.

Oh, by the way, he’ll be back for Veldt’s harvest—for all of that harvest—in 10 weeks. (Thank goodness the galaxy has adopted the Gregorian calendar.) And he’ll just leave a skeleton military crew on the moon to ensure there’ll be no more rebellions on this moon.

Alas—at least for Atticus—the plan backfires. When that skeleton crew tries to take advantage of a young woman, another young woman, Kora, takes exception. She almost singlehandedly turns this skeleton crew into actual skeletons.

And, in so doing, that turns Veldt into a—you guessed it—rebel moon.

After all, the Imperium will not be kind to Veldt when it hears about the slaughter. The moon has no choice but to fight. And that means that Kora must now traipse across the galaxy looking for a little backup from the Imperium’s many enemies.

And here’s the thing: Kora’s not just any rebel. She’s the one-time adopted daughter of the Imperium’s own ruthless leader, Balisarius. A former fearsome officer of the Imperium. And, oh, yeah, the most-wanted woman in the galaxy. Yeah, Atticus really should’ve read the screenplay more closely.

Positive Elements

We’ll need to move away from Atticus now because, let’s face it, he’s a jerk. Kora, the movie’s hero, has more going for her. While we don’t know her complete backstory, the fact that she’s no longer aligned with the Motherworld’s bloody Imperium says something about her character. The fact that she’d rather farm than fight is nice, too. But she means to protect her idyllic village from the Imperium’s predations. And she’ll risk her life to do so. “Kindness is a virtue worth dying for,” she says (even if she shows precious little kindness herself).

And while Gunnar did accidentally get his boss killed, he seems like a decent chap himself. He’s certainly not as comfortable with fighting as Kora is, but he does his best. Gunnar also takes a big risk later on in the film to save her.

Kora and Gunnar meet a number of fearsome warriors willing to help their cause, one of whom makes a rousing speech to his own band of rebels. (Not all of them join him, but a few do so.) They’re instrumental in helping a couple of folks out of bad situations, and those warriors in turn seem to be rather conscientious. One of their number a fearsome bladesperson named Nemesis, even expresses respect for a fallen foe and remorse in what had to be done.

A resident on a far-off world tells Atticus that “honor and charity is [the planet’s] most valued tenants.” (“Honor I understand,” Atticus tells him. “Charity, I do not.”)

Spiritual Elements

The overarching plot of Rebel Moon (and its planned sequels, however many there might be) involves a Messianic character: the daughter of the rightful king of the Motherworld. That daughter, Issa, was prophesied to bring about a new age of peace and joy to the galactic realm. In flashback, we see that Issa appears to have magical (or divine) powers: She brings a bird back to life. (Her former bodyguard says that she saw Issa do things that would be difficult, if not impossible, to explain scientifically.)

During a harvest celebration on Veldt, village leader Sindri tells attendees that the “gods of the harvest demand a tribute. An offering.” That offering? Sex, apparently. He encourages attendees partner up: “Make love tonight, for the harvest! For the very food we eat! For the gods!” The whole speech is done without a lot of reverence, so it’s hard to say how much of it constitutes a sincere faith tradition. (We hear references to other sacred entities, too, as well as the phrase, “God’s will.”)

Sexual Content

After that rousing exhortation from Sindri, Kora pairs off with a guy from the village. A village girl later jokes with Kora, telling her that she heard the two of them while walking down the street.

It wasn’t the first time the two had (ahem) given an offering to the harvest gods. When Kora’s roommate (a father figure of sorts) asks why she doesn’t enter into a more permanent relationship with the guy, Kora says, “It’s easy between us. Does it have to be more than that?”

In a flashback, we see Kora in her Imperium duds smooch another Imperium officer. She tells us that the Imperium encouraged them to take lovers, so that they’d have something to fight for when politics and conquest seemed a little to esoteric. (The Imperium also taught Kora that love was a weakness, which seems a bit inconsistent.)

Though not designed to titillate, a naked man lies on the ground, his critical bits hidden but his flank exposed to the camera. Other guys go shirtless. A female spider-humanoid entity is seen without a top (though her breasts are far from human). A tavern seems to be a place of business for several crossdressing male prostitutes. (They wear various forms of lingerie.) In the same bar, an apparent male humanoid tries to buy the services of Gunnar (telling him that his bedsheets are relatively clean).

We see Atticus presumably naked in one scene (the camera doesn’t stray below the waist), and we note that his body is pocked by curious circular indentations. Those may be the result of a “relationship” he has with a curious mass of tentacles, which seem to embrace him and glom onto him as Atticus talks with a subordinate.

Soldiers make crude comments about a woman on Veldt.

Violent Content

Rebel Moon offers plenty of action and violence, but little actual blood. Guns fire off rounds of energy that cauterize wounds even as they make them. (We do see telltale holes go right through a couple of people, though.) Fights can involve those guns, but also include swords, knives, clubs, canes and spears. It’d be tedious to list every bit of violence we see here, but here’s a rundown of some more notable, and relatively troubling, scenes.

Soldiers attempt to rape a woman on Veldt, literally picking her up and dragging her into a longhouse to commit the deed. One solitary soldier tries to put a stop to it, but he’s overwhelmed, beaten up and restrained. (His superior officer tells him that he’ll be chained to a post and forced to watch the assault.) Kora stops the attack, knocking men down, slashing their legs with knives; she ultimately fires and kills several with blasters. (She finishes off one man who’s twitching on the ground.)

A man is hit in the face with a club-like cane, knocking him out. His assailant continues to hit him until he’s dead. Another man is beaten in a similar manner; a blow to his face sends several teeth flying toward the camera. An alien is also pummeled, and it seems as if we see part of the creature’s face fly off.

Someone engages in a fight with a humanoid spider-like creature. Blades slash through the creature’s abdomen before the weapons find a home in her more humanoid torso. A gigantic griffin-esque beast apparently kills a man by digging its talons into the guy’s chest.

Several dead and dying people bear bloody wounds. Spaceships explode. A couple of people are stabbed and expire. A massive needle-like instrument is injected into someone’s neck, killing the person. Privates are hit and painfully grabbed. A spacecraft decimates an alien world. An apparent corpse is injected with all manner of fluids and brought back to life. A disembodied brain seems to talk through a brainless human.

A dog kills a bird. We hear about the wholesale murder of families, villages and entire planets.

Crude or Profane Language

Five s-words join a handful of other profanities, including “a–,” “b–ch,” “b–tard” and the British profanity “b–locks.” God’s name is misused once.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Someone seems to derive pleasure from substances absorbed through his skin. One of Kora’s warriors is drunk to the point of unconsciousness when she first encounters him. He sobers up to some extent, but he’s seen taking swigs from a flask thereafter. Someone drinks a glass of something in a bar and nearly gags.

Other Negative Elements

Something kidnaps a child—and plans to do her in. Someone commits an act of treachery. Soldiers treat someone very rudely. Characters wager on the future of an enslaved man.

Conclusion

What do you get when you crib from a whole bunch of beloved films, slather on some spectacular visual effects and package the whole thing for Netflix?

In the case of Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, you get a bit of an eye-catching mess.

This Rebel Moon movie—the first of a rumored trilogy—parrots a great many well-known flicks. It takes its most obvious queues from Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven. You can see echoes of The Lord of the Rings and the Star Wars films—especially the Mos Eisley cantina scene. (Indeed, Director Zack Snyder originally pitched it as a Star Wars film.)

But when I watched it, it reminded me, in a way, of The Beastmaster. And Krull. And loads of other fantasy/sci-fi flicks made in the 1980s and ‘90s that were kinda fun, but also pretty terrible.

Certainly, the visual effects found in Rebel Moon far outstrip those found in The Beastmaster. And certainly one can always get behind a bunch of plucky combatants take on an evil empire … like we see in Star Wars. And Lord of the Rings. And Seven Samurai. And—

You get the idea. While visually impressive, Rebel Moon is a copycat, self-serious slog that’s eclipsed by the movies it pulls from.

You could say similar things about its family appeal, too. While it steers clear of blood spatter and thus, technically, stays true to its PG-13 rating, it somehow feels more violent than it is. Sensual asides, brushes with nudity and some strong language don’t help make this Moon get any prettier, from a let’s plop the family down in front of the TV perspective.

And the story’s strange, messianic asides muddy the galactic waters even more. Even its morals seem oddly inconsistent, decrying revenge in one moment while praising it the next.

I know director Zack Snyder has his fans. But for me, his movies tend to favor style over story. Rebel Moon doubles down on those tendencies, encouraging people to marvel at how it looks and to forget about what it is.

And what is it? Not a very good film.