Rebel Moon: Kind des Feuers

Ich mag Zack Snyder, ich halte seine Comic-Filme für das Beste, was in diesem Genre je entstanden ist (ja, ich spreche auch über die letzten Filme). Und als Person finde ich ihn sympathisch wegen seiner Leidenschaft. Aber was zum Teufel sollte das sein? Es stört mich nicht, dass der Film hier und da klaut und Inspiration nutzt, darauf hat mich schon der Trailer vorbereitet, aber warum ist es so… Leer? Dumm? Überheblich? Langweilig? Wenn Sie bei der ersten Aufnahme wie ein Teenager kichern und wenn Ihnen der folgende Monolog, der erklären soll, in welcher Welt wir uns befinden, nichts erklärt, dann sollten Sie wissen, dass sich das in den nächsten Minuten und Stunden nicht verbessern wird. Möglicherweise werden Sie auch keine Lust haben, sich über den Film lustig zu machen. Rebel Moon: Kind des Feuers hat nämlich auch das nicht verdient. Ein solcher Film wäre in den 80er oder 90er Jahren bestenfalls auf einer Videokassette gelandet, obwohl die Autoren davon überzeugt gewesen wären, dass sie ein Meisterwerk geschaffen haben. Diesmal hat es nicht geklappt, Zack, und ich würde sagen, dass du es auch mit dem zweiten Teil nicht wiedergutmachen wirst. (25.12.2023)

I really didn't expect it to be that shit, but I've been trying to find something that would be at least a little bit good for Rebel Moon for about an hour now. Well, let's just say the make-up effects and Ed Skrein's overacting bad guy are pretty cool, other than that, though, it's a complete monstrosity. If anyone was living in hope until recently that Zack Snyder was a lousy writer but could still be at least a decent director, they'll lose that hope here, because almost nothing in Rebel Moon was good. The questionable quality of the visual effects would be the least of the problems, as would the shoddy rip-offs of just about every major sci-fi film from Star Wars to The Fifth Element, Flash Gordon to The Matrix to Jupiter Ascending. The bigger problem is that, audiovisually, the whole thing is uglier than the fifteen-year-old Mutant Chronicles, and you can't see a damn thing in the action scenes. Snyder as a cameraman keeps relying on the already pretty annoying slow-motion effect, but most of all he can't even get a proper picture of the characters who are currently fighting, and that none of the heroes have any personality or motivation. And I don’t mean a believable motivation, but any motivation whatsoever, because recruiting galactic badasses usually goes along the lines of "Can you help us? - I don't know, more like no. - How about revenge? - Ah, okay" . The result is two hours of boring characters running around the screen, bossed around by a perfectly bland Sofia Boutella, all set in an ugly world that looks like a twenty year old sci-fi flick that was already bad back then. Considering Snyder got a blank check from Netflix and could do whatever he wanted and he made this, it's obvious he's completely useless as a filmmaker. (23.12.2023)

Without the slow motion, it would have been half the running time. But okay. Let's just say I had a pretty decent time for the first half at the expense of Zack Snyder trying to embrace the concept of The Magnificent Seven and graft onto it some mythology that would stand up to many sequels. It didn't annoy me, even the graphic sequences from the panels of some overstuffed comic book somehow survived unscathed. But then it starts flying around planets, making do with a few ugly CGI settings, even darker, perhaps to make the digital clutter not so in your eyes. Snyder stuffs in a few generic fights that won't get a normal viewer out of their chair, without any suspense, let alone a hint of atmosphere, and with a villain that looks like out of a classy S&M club. Everything that happens after the scene of the monster taming is one big visually ugly waste, and that's pretty much the entire second half, with one slow-motion sequence after another, where Snyder must have thought that if it worked in 300, it must work here. No, Zack, it really doesn't, maybe in your wet post-pubescent dreams. (05.01.2024)

Zack Snyder should completely give up directing his own screenplays. It doesn't do good to him and it doesn't do good to all those who still, fifteen years ago, thought that a filmmaker was being born on the scene, from whom we will want to see everything. I already know now that I don't want to see anything. Rebel Moon should never have been created. The producers of Star Wars, where he originally wanted to sell it, knew very well why they didn't want to make another story episode out of this subject. Others felt the same way, that bullshit was being born here. But then there shouldn't have been that damn Netflix, who knows that audiences will be drawn to the names hiding behind the film...and it doesn't really matter that all of them will watch it once and often have trouble finishing it. This movie is an absolute mess. It has all the characteristics of classic adequate sci-fi, but we have seen all those positive signs several times. And not only seen them, but also enjoyed them, because they entertained us. But here it is a disgrace. An unspeakable disgrace. If Zack would rather admit that screenplays are not his strong point and instead take on filming some acclaimed sci-fi novel. I think he could handle that, but he must not mess with that subject. Because then the trouble is in the world. How am I supposed to be excited about the whole universe after this movie...I really don't know. Maybe Zack will explain it to me with a second part. (27.12.2023)

Zack Snyder used to be a director whose films I alternately rated very high or very low until about 2013, but in the last decade or so my acceptance of his films has settled more on the lower star numbers, with Rebel Moon clearly being the culmination of that trend. It basically can't go any lower than that, everything here is wrong except that it roughly keeps the technical parameters of a Hollywood blockbuster. Good luck trying to build a new cinematic universe around this shit, because I can't imagine who will realistically care about these characters and their world. (23.12.2023)