Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023) User Reviews

The rating is objective

[Dimakovtun · 5/10 · 24 December 2023]

The biggest problem of the movie is the plot. It is just bad. And not just the main storyline which makes little sense and the villains are comedic, but almost every interaction ends up with the viewer asking "but, why?" or "how does it even make sense?".

The assembly of heroes (what the movie is about) is also rushed as hell, and the motivation of the people to join is straight-up nonexistent in most of the cases and is simply skipped entirely.

As for the villain who comes to find mysterious troubling rebels, apparently every single person knows who are the rebels and how to find them and shares that information to the first stranger they meet. It's not like they are even hiding.

Next, combat and action scenes. Blasters that penetrate people in armor through, but can't penetrate a thin piece of wood. Remember when in the new Star Wars trilogy a red guard could strike Ray but was just making dumb random moves to simulate action? Well, it's absolutely the same here. Maximum drama, lots of slow motion, frequent switch of the scenes every few seconds and very little sense.

The acting is ok, but it's difficult to judge the actors if they do good because the script tells them to follow an unnatural character arc in the first place. I'd say Sofia played Kora well, but Kora is just a poor character which is out of place in the very story she's central.

It's not all bad. The picture is nice.

I'd say it's the most disappointing Snyder's movie so far.

Feels like Chat GPT made a Movie

[sstar-74476 · 5/10 · 26 December 2023]

It is all over the place. No character connection. Vulgar scenes to force emotions. Weird cheap cocktail of Star Wars and Dune. Felt like fan-made university project with a multi-million budget that was only spend on slow motion CGI scenes. I doubt that the extended edition will have more movie magic since this one already fails in every sense.

Not even the world-building or the design felt worth watching since it felt like the characters were in costumes rather than authentic dresses. No scene composition gave the feeling of a profound world with deep history.

Too many unoriginal ideas that were thrown together with the hope of "Let's hope it will be the next movie success".

I wouldn't say that the actors were weak, rather the error or lack of writers in the writing process of the movie show how important dialogue, character building arcs and real emotional value are in movies rather than gross tasteless blood baths, torture, explosions and one-dimensional characters.

Nothing original here

[therealjaysmoke · 6/10 · 28 December 2023]

I think Zack Snyder didn't really do much research into this one. Maybe it's because it's a Netflix thing, I am not sure. There's so much borrowing from several other popular movies that I just wasn't invested in the story because it was all tooo basic and predictable.

You had the Thanos and Gamora moment in there, you are the Starwars Resistance vs The First Order moment in there. You had the Darthvader type figure in there. You had the Kylo Ren character in there. And the worlds looked like something from a Starwars episode.

Also the whole story was just weak, too weak for a director like Zack. I mean we've seen it done so many times from Lord of the Rings, to Game of Thrones, to even The Avengers. You are threatened by a bigger force, so you go around recruiting people to help you fight this force. That's basically it. There wasn't any rich subplot like we see in eg. Dune. Just very basic.

Does it warrant a part 2, I strongly don't think it did. It's lazy writing and directing and shouldn't be encouraged.

All in all, it's an ok movie. It's not bad like some reviews are saying. The effects are spot on, I loved the cinematography. The only drawbacks for me were the weak storyline, the awful fight sequence, the casting could have been better and the all too familiar scenes.

The Magnificent Seven Spaceships

[markjenkins-28628 · 6/10 · 27 December 2023]

A test of the degree of imagination shown in a sci-fi film is whether it could equally have been done as a cowboy movie. "Rebel Moon Pt. 1" could have, and the movie would have been "The Magnificent Seven" (1960, 2016, 1998-2000 as a TV series, or indeed "Seven Samurai" of 1954), because the plot is err.... identical. And I expect the plot of the second half will be identical too. So if you have ever seen any of those and a spaceship taking off, you don't need to see this movie (OK, some of the spaceship imagery is very good). But I have to wonder whether anyone was actually paid for "writing" the script :-)

Disappointing Star Wars wannabe

[kirsticlaymore · 6/10 · 26 December 2023]

Watching this film, it felt like it was created by committee and written for an audience that the director thinks is not particularly clever.

There were so many elements in this that seemed like they had been added because someone thought "hey wouldn't it be cool if there was a... *cool flying bird you can ride* or *a bar scene that looks like the one in Star Wars*

The script also needed some work. The parts of the story were just thrown in as backstory or someone explaining the bleeding obvious. A little more respect shown for the audience would have allowed us to know some of that through watching, understanding or less didactic dialogue.

On the plus side, it looks great. Visually there is always great depth and detail. I enjoyed it enough to want to see the next one, although I suspect my guesses about major plot developments will be correct.

Everything you've seen done before, blended together, with a scoop of mud

[RogerBorg · 3/10 · 30 December 2023]

A purely visual spectacle, and not even a great one at that, hidden behind a muddy filter.

Every scene is farcically derivative of Star Wars, Battle Beyond the Stars, Warhammer 40K, Turok, and many other, better sources.

Boutella just isn't credible leading lady material, characters are zero dimensional points, it's gratingly expositional, and the action scenes are comically ineptly choreographed, burdened with jump-cuts and slow-slow-slower-motion.

The plot is a series of "And then, and then, and then" fetch-quests that seem like an episodic TV show, crammed into a badly edited 2 1/4 hours that feels much longer. And it ends with a jarringly pointless "To be continued".

But... why, film, why? Why continue?

Well...

[meelaleks · 7/10 · 31 December 2023]

Well, after reading some of the reviews I sort of braced for impact. But it was not as bad as I expacted. True, the acting is well... lets say errr... below par. But so was the acting in the first Starwars movies to be honest. The graphics where above par, way beyond to my surprise. Does this make up for the not-thrar-good acting? Nope. But it eases the pain. Do I care that it has a lot in common with the original, with Starwars? Hmmm... a bit, bit not so much that I bothered to be honest. This movie is good enough on its own. Give it a chance and watch it without your mind made up already. You might end up liking it.

I just want good sci-fi

[BlockLike · 4/10 · 22 December 2023]

I wanted this to be good so badly. Like really badly.

Other than the world design and effects, there really isn't much else to salvage from it.

In true Snyder style we've got lens flare and slow motion, but this time he's dialled it up over the top.

Some of the action scenes are absolutely ruined from way too much diving in and out of slow motion.

The biggest disappointment is the writing.

The first 70% of the film is absolutely a waste of time and not needed.

You don't find out most of the characters actual relevance until the back end of the film.

Everything before that is a mixture of utterly pointless painfully boring scenes done for the sole purpose of filler.

Looks great, but that's all.

Messy but engrossing

[masonsaul · 7/10 · 23 December 2023]

Rebel Moon is overstuffed and underdeveloped. There's too many characters and in its current state there's not enough time to give them meaningful depth so it feels rushed despite clocking in at over 2 hours. However, this is Zack Snyder going full Snyder in a way that is uniquely him so it still has plenty of stylish highs.

Clearly inspired by Star Wars and Seven Samurai and so much more. All of these ideas and borrowed visuals create a new world that's genuinely interesting and consistently striking. The second act just has the core cast planet hopping between set pieces which are just so committed to looking cool in a way only Snyder could pull off with this level of seriousness.

Sofia Boutella gives the best performance. Being the lead character means she gets the most depth which helps and she nails the general stoicism of her character. Even with the dodgy accent Charlie Hunnam is still able to be a loveable scoundrel and Anthony Hopkins voice work gives the film its most human performance.

Everyone else is wasted. It's especially shocking to see how late into the film Djimon Hounsou is introduced and how little he gets after that, he really is just kinda there. Staz Nair, Bae Doona and Ray Fisher all do quite a lot with a little whilst facing the same issue and are hopefully given a lot more in the extended cut and sequel.

Once again being his own cinematographer, Zack Snyder creates gorgeous imagery destined to become wallpapers. His action remains really good even in the currently butchered PG-13 state and the slow motion is present without becoming grating. The CG is hit and miss but considering the budget, it's a lot more excusable here than in most of the other big blockbusters released recently.

Unusually for a Zack Snyder film, there are no needle drops, unconventional or otherwise, which isn't a huge problem thanks to Tom Holkenborg's score which fills the gaps nicely. It's very reminiscent of their previous collaborations, especially with Holkenborg's trademark percussion heavy flourishes that still haven't gotten old.

Embarrassingly bad

[Smarmelade · 2/10 · 22 December 2023]

Imagine you're a twelve year old boy, having watched some cool movies for the first time five minutes ago, having your bootleg toys of popular franchises and smashing them together in dirt saying "and then" every couple of minutes. Now imagine you get tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to make that a movie.

Now imagine that being better than this.

I thought Sucker Punch was bad. This is somehow worse.

Below average acting, uninteresting characters, worldbuilding hastily slapped from who knows how many better franchises, including WH40K, Star Wars, World War II, Kurosawa, probably some anime and much more.

Visually I would describe this as "vulgar", an ocular insult. And so much slo-mo, it's just silly. It just looks and feels bad, atmosphere is equal to a junkyard.

Villains are so bad, heroes are no better. I get Netflix does what Netflix do, making bad expensive movies, that people watch. But this is insane.

I want to make something very clear - it might look like a good movie, it is not. You shouldn't watch this and promote this. Ask better for your money.

Not sure where all the hatred is coming from

[Mobius_loop · 8/10 · 28 December 2023]

I went into this with zero expectations and enjoyed it all the way through. My only disappointment was that I had to wait for the conclusion. Reading the negative reviews I see some valid criticism, but there is no justification for the one and two star reviews. Considering looking at the overall score even with these extreme low reviews, a LOT of people are upvoting without bothering to review. Is this a GREAT movie? Heck no. It has a lot of flaws. But is it an ENJOYABLE film if you just want to ride the emotional wave of despicable villains and stereotypical heroes? Absolutely. This requires exactly no more suspension of disbelief than any of the blockbuster comic book hero movies flooding the market. Do you want to put the same filter of realism on ANY of those? Do you think, any of the Marvel superheroes make any sense at all? Its all emotions and action which this movie has plenty of. It's bubblegum. So just get your emotional rush and leave it at that. It's not going to win any awards but does that make the slightest bit of difference for the majority of people who will like it?

Looks gorgeous but the rest is lacking

[mluinstra · 6/10 · 22 December 2023]

Greetings from the other side.

The visuals in this movie are just awesome, but it's lacking substance. First, I'm sick of the 100 pound women taking on a bunch of 240 pound men and winning. Nobody has ever bought this crap, and it takes you out of the movie. Try letting the women use her brain to out think these bad guys instead.

It's hard to judge this movie on it's own because it's basically a women zipping around the galaxy putting together a team to fight the bad guys. We get to know each recruit a little bit as they are approached by the woman.

So, this movie is watchable for the special effects, but not much else. It's basically an introduction of all the characters and a basic background of the woman's story. It doesn't offer much by itself. They should have made this a 3.5 or 4 hour movie and included part 2.

Anyway, it's still watchable but by itself, it's not very memorable. Part 2 will determine if this movie is good or not.

Entertaining + Potential

[DawnOfTheRob · 7/10 · 26 December 2023]

Rebel Moon was Visually stunning with plenty of potential & World + character building to come.

Very few if any Sci Fi movies are going to compare to Star Wars and what it achieved as a franchise but that doesn't mean everything else is bad or not worth your attention. Watch this with an open mind and you might just enjoy it - find it entertaining. There's no way this movie deserves the low scores received on here , seems many decided that they would dislike it before even hitting play and thats a shame. I look forward to the next movie and finding out where the story goes next. One movie at a time without any preconceived ideas.

I liked it, I'm not sure why ppl hate it

[BruceWayne3 · 7/10 · 24 December 2023]

There was some funky unique cool aspect of this.

A little slow A little non creative with story line But things got interesting I liked the action scenes

The bird creature looked horrible in the CGI But was kind of a wild scene

That subway / tunnel scene looked very 90's Not sure if I love it or hate it

That spider scene was actually bad ass Get the f outta here if you didn't think that was cool Buuut the cut scenes to the A listers doing cheesy facial expressions is not it I hope Charlie hunnan feels like a pansy having a woman save his life There's no way King Arthur would let that happen

The graphics got cheap with the letches

The cut scene when Charlie Hunna goes to step in front of the two women arguing does not line up, he goes to step in between the two but once second later he is standing behind her Bad editing

Why is every bad guy modeled after Nazis ?

How could admiral Atticus survive that fall ?

I'm looking forward to the 2nd part Hopefully they clean up the graphics.

Cosmic nothing

[jaimeloddo · 24 December 2023]

What's worse than a movie that shamelessly plagiarizes elements from other sci-fi or fantasy products? A movie that does all this and fails to even build a world in which you feel interest and curiosity in finding out how the story will evolve. However, if the terrible world-building is Rebel Moon's biggest flaw, it certainly cannot be said that everything else is able to compensate for the extremely poor script. Direction, visual effects, photography, costumes are all so aseptic and unmemorable that it is guaranteed that nothing of this movie will remain forged in people's minds for years to come, as movies and TV series have been able to do like which Rebel Moon would pretentiously love to place itself.

Seven Samurai in Space.

[Nemesis42 · 7/10 · 23 December 2023]

Spectacular and beautiful, with periodic action sequences. As the story unfolds you come to the realisation of how simple the plot is, per this review's tittle. It's full of hero tropes too.

However it's watchable and you may even connect with a character or two. As with much of Snyders work the character development can be vacant, but this film makes up for it with gorgeous visual, audio and musical design.

The VFX are top of the line, and the created universe is a little all over the place when comparing planet to planet, though overall, this is an attractive and thought provoking universe.

They've had a shot at making this universe look a bit different and mostly succeeded. If you like sci-fi design you will love this.

How did this get made ?

[danhaines-37800 · 3/10 · 24 December 2023]

This is probably one of the worst films made in the last 10 year ,but the biggest question is who decided this was a good idea, and who keeps giving Zack Snyder money to make this crap!

The dialogue and the cinema photography looks like it came out of a PS4 cut scene. As for the action sequences, imagine if a fanboy, got a hold of a camcorder and shot a load of matrix style inspired scenes, after the 2nd sequence it becomes quite annoyed and nauseating.

It Almost like they started filming, then decided to write a plot based on previous literature or films. Every actor in the film looks like they're reciting lines from hostage video.

It's telling that they couldn't get a proper studio to finance this film and instead had to go straight to streaming as no one would pay decent money to see this.

The fact they've already produced a sequel, only tells you how delusional they were when they put this thing into production.

Entertaining enough

[mr-whyte · 7/10 · 30 December 2023]

I thought the film was alot better than some say here. It is truely a first episode introducing the characters and the world's. Yes it could have been better, but all in all I was entertained enough to give this a 7. The acting fine, the story interesting and the production value is good. The franchise deserves a good part two before we give a final judgement. I have hope that it will be good. So all in all check it out for yourself and give it a chance until the second part is on Netflix before final judgement. I enjoyed the film and the characters and I hope you will enjoy it also. And now ten more characters for the minimum limit;-)

Something wrong with the writing, dialogue, and acting/directing

[bjjao · 4/10 · 22 December 2023]

As an other reviewer wrote, there are wooden language, wooden expressions and wooden dialogue.

The first ting I noticed in the movie was the words the actors spoke seemed like they had been written by a teenager... so many pointless words.

Then there where the actors speaking the words, they just seemed wierd and emotionless.

Then there are the action scenes. There are a lot of them, and they could have been really good. But the editing are just a bunch of normal speed, slow speed clipping to make it look good, and the bad guys just stand still doing nothing while the "hero" spends minutes moving around in the open...

CGI/Greenscreen galore.. but very well done. So this is perhaps the strongest part of the movie.

Waisted and nonsense slowmo sections... there are so many of them... and they are so pointless and gives nothing to the movie. There are movies and directors that know how to use slow motion sequences in a movie, and then there are this movie and director, that did not take that class... it's just a waist of time.

In summary, if you are able to ignore all the writing, dialogue, acting/directing issues... its a passable scifi action movie.

The movie could have been so much better, because there is a decent enough story underneath.. and they obviously had enough money to do what they wanted...

I'm assuming Netflix payed for this. So I'm guessing that there where a big payday for writer/director and no requirements for quality on the delivered product. So they just cut from the budget anyone that could have given the director feedback on the uality issues.

I really liked it, but I feel like it's getting review bombed

[bottjena2 · 8/10 · 23 December 2023]

My mom first sent me a message today after watching it. She said "Rebel Moon (With 3 thumbs up).

I just finished the movie 10 mins ago and I sent her back the following message.

"That was a damn good straight to Netflix movie"

So imagine my surprise when I come here to read the reviews and just see a bunch haters. I'm wondering if we watched the same movie.

It feels like it's getting review bombed for some reason.

The main bad dude was great. He's the best bad dude i've seen in a movie in a while. You never sense that he's acting.

Over all I liked the movie a lot and hopefully they still create the second movie so we know how the story ends.

People are too picky these days

[jhsumoney · 7/10 · 31 December 2023]

I had pretty high expectations for this movie after seeing the trailer. I'm not sure if it's based on any source material but for a Sci-Fi movie I wasn't disappointed at all. It had an interesting plot, good visuals without too much CGI dependency, performances were solid all around and the world-building was concise without slowing down the pace too much (which can happen in Snyder films from time to time). Can't wait to see more from this story as it progresses. Was it the best movie ever? No. But not worth the many scores below 5 I've been seeing. People don't realize how bad a movie has to be to warrant a score of 1 or 2. Completely delusional.

More Flash Gordon Than Star Wars [6/10]

[DrBlasphemy · 6/10 · 19 December 2023]

As a Zack Snyder fan I can straight out say this movie is above average. It's not Star Wars, but more Flash Gordon (1980) without the cheese in visual style.

The plot is pretty simple following the template of Seven Samurai, but suffers from too much world building exposition. They say "it's much better to show than tell", but Rebel Moon counter acts that statement. Sometimes a single sentence will do. Look at Star Wars as an example. George Lucas didn't have the money to do tons of flashback sequences and used dialague, which was just as good or even better leaving it up to the audience's imagination. We didn't need a 10 minute sequence for Kora. That time could have been used to develop the other characters, who are sorely lacking in depth.

I know that Snyder loves to use slow motion to highlight moments, but he went a bit overboard with some shots. It was used where it really wasn't needed in some stituations.

Overall the movie is good, but it's very hard to digest in one viewing. It's like Underworld where it takes 2-3 times to absorb it all. If anything I'm looking forward to the longer R rated version.

I'm already down for ten of these movies

[FeastMode · 7/10 · 22 December 2023]

Hi. My name is FeastMode and I'm a sci-fi junkie. After watching this movie, I'm ecstatic to have witnessed the creation of this beautiful sci-fi world. I'm immediately invested. I want more. Now.

There are a few things you should expect from a Zack Snyder movie:

1) Stunning visuals. This entire movie is sci-fi eye candy with high levels of imagination.

2) Amazing music. Of course it's by Junkie XL. He has done many of Snyder's other movies.

3) Lots of BEASTLY slow-motion shots. Some people complain about him overusing it. Not me. So many of those scenes give me goosebumps, especially with the music playing.

I was dreading having to wait a year or longer for the next one. But it's scheduled for April 2024!!!

I.

Can't.

Wait.

(2 viewings, 12/21/2023, 4/17/2024)

Eye Candy-Empty Shell

[TMAuthor23 · 5/10 · 18 December 2023]

The Zack Snyder fanboy cult is legion. That's fine. Every crowd likes their own kind of music.

Objectively this is what Snyder produces: gritty, dark, unhappy, overly serious, tedious stuff. Most of its average, with a few exceptions. But there's always cool stuff to look at. The usual Snyder-verse effects are on full display: long establishing shots, fight scenes using slo-mo and speed shifting, and massive objects being viewed by terrified onlookers. He's kind of a poor man's Villaneuve.

The rabid followers can say what they want about "The Snyder Cut" Justice League, but the reality is there's no broad market for unrelentingly dismal sludge. Why isn't there a Judge Dredd movie coming out soon? Or another Punisher film? Dark and too serious isn't fun to spend money on. Especially when it's not all that new.

I do have to laugh though, at all the media hacks that are pissing and moaning about how derivative this is. And it is. But it mostly feels that way because Snyder wrote a script for a stand alone Star Wars story and was told by Lucasfilm (or maybe it was Disney) "thanks, but no thanks".

So he went to the streaming giant that loves to produce expensive projects so they can cancel them before they can develop any traction. This is that script brought to life. Or death, as Netflix may have it.

It's not nice to hammer on creatives. But I for one am sick and tired of the waif-ish 90 pound girl warrior movies that have been all the rage lately. And while Boutella (Kora, the protagonist in Rebel Moon) was excellent as Jaylah in Star Trek Beyond, I'm over it. Other than Gunpowder Milkshake (which was hilarious) it's all a bunch of BS. I don't care if Maggie Q or Daisy Ridley (both decent actresses btw) are in it or not (they aren't in this, in case you're confused), it's stupid. It was bad enough when Arnold, Sly and Bruce were ignoring the laws of physics in their various franchises, but we're all a little more savvy now and wouldn't buy that stuff from them in today's market either. But maybe I'm wrong, because there are now 4 Expendables movies in existence. God save us from the people who are buying tickets to those.

The review of the performances? Boutella? Strictly two note delivery. Honsu? Not bad, dour and angry. Hunaam? Possibly the most nuanced.

The plot? Star Wars excuse aside, it's a mess. The preposterousness of engaging with their Seven Samurai recruits at moments when each is faced with a crucial test is just lazy storytelling.

The villains? One dimensional and very unconvincing. One, the most visible, a bizarre space nazi foil, is so predictable and poorly written that he could be dropped into any of a number of other films. The other? The supposedly all powerful Big Bad who apparently has the power of life over death is a comic book trope of a villain. Evil for evil's sake. And the dumb resurrection of the former by the latter begs the question: how do you threaten a subordinate that you just brought back to life? And instead of original visuals, Snyder dips deeply into the visually obscene as replacement for creativity.

Here's a thought: (which the trailer for Part II indicated might really be a thing) the very last image is of a rogue droid, having gone "wild" after killing one of its "masters", standing up in a field, wearing a crown of deer antlers. Now that would/will? Have been (might be) a story worth exploring.

There are much better choices to spend two hours on. Watch Rogue One, which at its core, this movie wishes it was.

It's free to subscribers now, so have at it. Can't wait to see those reviews pour in.

Its Sci Fi folks

[raymaxwell-1 · 7/10 · 24 December 2023]

I am getting to the point that I dont even bother looking at the reviews on IMDB anymore.

Every film people dont like is always the worst they have seen this year, often worst they have seen this decade.

Lets discuss the the gripes: 1. Action scenes have too much slow motion. That Snyders thing. Deal with it or dont watch his movies.

2. Cant deal with a skinny girl beating up loads of men. Newsflash soldier boys, a 250 pound world champion UFC fighter couldnt beat 10 soldiers so who cares and stop analysing the enemy strategy when you probably didnt have a problem with John Wick killing 500 because hey he's John Wick.

3. Ive seen this kind of story before. Its been adnitted its a homage to The Seven Samurai so no kidding.

I thought it was a deecnt SCI FI movie with above average special effects. Also its a 2 parter so of course it might be a bit slow to get going. If you really want to gripe about a slow part 1, watch Dune.

A solid 7 from me.