‘Rebel Moon: Part One- A Child of Fire’ Film Review

Beginning with simplistic narration (provided by a slumming Sir Anthony Hopkins, who also voices a droid that is the “C-3PO” of the piece), Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon: Part One- A Child of Fire” sets its sights on being this generation’s “Star Wars”. In truth, Snyder’s concept was originally pitched as a chapter for George Lucas’s classic saga, but was rejected by the studio. Snyder and his co-writers Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten seemingly didn’t change much. The result not only rips-off the classic trilogy (and its sequels and prequels), but also insults Lucas’s intended homages to Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”. Indeed, this film is a “Star Wars” wannabe in almost every scene.

This dreary and dull motion picture finds Kora (Sofia Boutella, playing the film’s Luke Skywalker), a veteran soldier living in a farming community on the outskirts of their planet. When the galaxy’s bad guys (read “The Empire”) send in their Nazi-like troops led by Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein, trying hard to be Christopher Waltz’s Hans Landa)to take over the crops, Kora and her fellow settlers find the courage to rise up and fight back against their oppressors. Joined by fellow farmer Gunnar (Michel Huisman) the two set off to enlist help from samurai/jedi/soldiers of fortune, finding (new?) hope in saving their world.

The resistance fighters are cast with some pretty good actors such as Djimon Hounsou, Ray Fisher, and Bae Doona. Charlie Hunnam plays Kai, the film’s Han Solo (sort of), designed right down to the fact he is picked up in a cantina. Oh, Kora and Gunnar are accosted and have to kill an alien thug inside the bar, you know, just like Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Unfortunately, everyone gives a bad performance, with Hunnam using an unnecessary Irish brogue and each cast member stumbling over some of the most dreadfully simplistic dialogue in many a decade. As written and performed, there isn’t one character of any interest.

When Snyder (doing his own cinematography) doesn’t shoot too dark, the visuals are a highlight. The landscapes and the skies that blanket them can be occasionally striking. It is a shame that Stefan Dechant and Stephen Swain’s production design fails to add to the imagery. Their sets are mostly dreary space docks with no flair that only draw attention to the film’s flat optical experience.

Even the action sequences fail to excite, as audiences have seen it all before. The battles are clumsily choreographed, the CGI ships look like a video game, and Snyder’s over-reliance on slow motion and lens flares becomes immediately tiresome and is nowhere near as cool-looking as he thinks.

While the screenplay shamelessly plunders from Lucas’s beloved “Star Wars” universe, the most embarrassingly blatant theft would be the existence of (basically) lightsabers. Call them what you will, but the “laser swords” used in this film are indeed lightsabers. When experiencing the moments in which they are used, one cannot fathom Zack Snyder’s audacity regarding the manner of their inclusion.

From “Star Wars” to “Dune” and even David Cronenberg’s body horror pictures, the film is a sloppy pastiche of many better films. It’s as if the filmmakers didn’t trust their own ideas, desperately pulling from other works in the hope of cobbling together something meaningful.