NOW ON NETFLIX! Prepare to finally see both hemispheres completely exposed in Rebel Moon – Part 2: Director’s Cut. Director Zack Snyder whips out the Fritz Lang influence immediately with the opening shot of a shirtless man with a shovel feeding a burning furnace. We then see it is human bones he is shoveling in, feeding the spaceship’s engine, which is shaped like a woman bent over with her arms behind her back. There are a series of glowing tubes stuck in her mouth with energy coursing through, with tears running from her eyes when it finishes. The energy is being diverted by the mysterious cloaked doctors of the mother world into the dead body of Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein), as the realm’s overlord, Balisarius (Fra Fee), needs him revived to finish his task.
Balisarius is not pleased to hear that the most wanted outlaw in the galaxy, the Scargiver, has not only been found but has also joined forces with the rebellion now led by Devra Bloodaxe (Cleopatra Coleman). Admiral Noble is given the task of bringing the Scargiver back alive to the mother world and murdering the rest of the farming moon, Veldt. On Veldt, Private Aris (Sky Yang) works helping the rebels hand in hand with villager Sam (Charlotte Maggi) to send deceiving transmissions back to his commanders, not realizing there are alien bounty hunters watching and sending counter reports.
Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver. (L-R) Staz Nair as Tarak and Djimon Hounsou as General Titus in Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver. Cr. Clay Enos/Netflix ©2023.
“…energy is being diverted by the mysterious cloaked doctors of the mother world into the dead body of Admiral Noble…”
Kora (Sofia Boutella) has returned after gathering together her group of champions to defend Veldt against the tyrannical Realm. We have General Titus (Djimon Hounsou), the long-haired Tarak (Staz Nair), the cyborg swordswoman Nemesis (Bae Doona), the angry rebel Milius (Elise Duffy), and the two-fisted farmer Gunner (Michael Huisman) against hordes of soldiers fighting for the slain king. It seems hopeless. However, Jimmy the robot (Anthony Hopkins) is still out there somewhere, so who knows…
So finally, after months of waiting for Rebel Moon – Part 2: Director’s Cut, here we are with a big fat R and all the kids sent to bed. What exactly are we getting with the real version of Snyder’s trek into space opera, which is subtitled Curse of Forgiveness? A glorious strawberry river of bloodshed with flesh-ripping battles and high-end dismemberment, the kind that the wee ones can’t handle. This includes the bloodier deeds of Jimmy, the CP3O gone feral, whose storyline is one of the most exciting elements of the film.