Rebel Moon – Part Two review: Zack Snyder's sci-fi saga falls flat

Netflix film disappoints with all-too-familiar story and lacklustre character development

Michiel Huisman stars as Gunnar and Sofia Boutella as Kora in Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver. Photo: Netflix

Zack Snyder might just be the most divisive director in Hollywood. Ardent supporters defend him to the hilt, even aggressively and successfully campaigning online to get “the Snyder cut” of his DC superhero film Justice League released.

But there are plenty who dismiss his work as style over substance – films including 300, Sucker Punch and the much-reviled Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

His latest project, sci-fi saga Rebel Moon – his second for Netflix following the enjoyably knockabout zombie film Army of the Dead – began with the release of the first part, A Child of Fire, in December. Detractors labelled it as a Star Wars-lite action-adventure, borrowing heaps from George Lucas’s famous intergalactic space opera, from droids to lightsabers.

It is a flaw that is hard to argue with as the second instalment, Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, arrives. Even the title, Rebel Moon, makes you think of the Rebel Alliance, the freedom fighters plotting to take down the Empire in Star Wars. Of course, Snyder and his faithful could rightly point out just how much Lucas lifted from Frank Herbert’s Dune novel series. Everyone, it seems, borrows from someone.

The question is, does Snyder do enough in The Scargiver to remix and reimagine? The answer is no. The story continues as the farmers from the backwater moon of Veldt are joined by a band of ex-soldiers staging their rebellion against the might of the militaristic Imperium, fighting on behalf of the interstellar empire known as the Motherworld.

Snyder’s script, co-written with Shay Hatten and Kurt Johnstad, picks up where Part One left off, with Imperium’s slain admiral Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) now resurrected, his head and body attached to a series of medical tubes as cowering minions conduct tests on him. Skrein continues to be the film’s more watchable element, a thoroughly nasty villain – though even he seems more low-key in Part Two.

On Veldt, the ramshackle group prepare for war, using straw dummies as targets as they practise decapitating their enemies. Once again, the focus is the Scargiver herself, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a “war orphan” who has her own connections to the Imperium and guilt associated with an assassination she carried out in the past. Her burgeoning love affair with Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) takes centre stage, although it adds little in the way of emotional heft.

After a surfeit of expositional (and myth-building) voice-overs in the opening reel, the dialogue is largely rote. Snyder peppers the film with rousing battle speeches that England’s King Henry V might be envious of. Chief culprit is Djimon Hounsou’s former Imperium general Titus, who spends most of the film either roaring from his gut or yelling phrases like “Dark days lie ahead of us all!” It’s a paper thin role in a film full of them.

As with Part One, Snyder is capable of staging impressive set pieces and battles, where ships are blown to smithereens with lobbed grenades and fireballs leap into the sky. It makes for a welcome distraction from the tediously solemn narrative that seems to be the Snyder USP. One of the big disappointments with Part Two is that Jimmy, the mechanical creature prominent in the preceding episode is largely absent, which means less chance to hear Sir Anthony Hopkins’ mellifluous tones.

Again, the film feels like a Star Wars derivative as Doona Bae’s warrior grabs her lightsabre-like sword to duel with several assailants. This time, Snyder expands his borrowings to include The Terminator. But all of this filching doesn’t exactly lead to anything original or outstanding. The Scargiver is more of the same, which is really damning it with feint praise.