I watched the new movie “Rebel Moon 2”. Has Snyder slipped?

This week, the sequel to the film “Rebel Moon”, called “The Giver of Scars,” was released on the streaming platform Netflix. Remember that the first part of the story, released at the end of last year, surprised us very unpleasantly.

Zack Snyder’s ambitious sci-fi project promised plenty of epic action and an intricate new cinematic universe. But the result is a profitable story, boring characters and consistent bland action.

But still, we tried to give Zach a second chance and watched the new film. Spoiler – alas, the second part did not correct errors. The film continues the tradition of the first part with an undeveloped plot and characters, not justifying the huge investments in its production (rumored to be more than $100 million). But first things first.

Everything here is very boring and expensive

What is the movie about: In the continuation of the story, the main character, Cora, returns to her village, believing that she has won the final battle. However, she notices that the enemies are back on stage. Together with new defenders, she prepares to fight for the life of her country against overwhelming increasing influence.

When you watch the second part, you periodically catch yourself thinking that the director set the goal to test how much boring, banal plot and dialogue can be fit into the framework of one film.

The whole plot comes together in one short sentence – the main character returns home to the farmer to save her village from the evil admiral. That’s all, this whole story. Boring? Incredibly boring! A hopeless, helpless emptiness.

If the first part was a strange mixture of “Star Wars” with “Dune”, with spaceships flying against the backdrop of desert landscapes, then the second part also includes elements of farm life and slow-motion space opera into this cocktail.

Tip of the day – don’t have much time to watch? Just rewind the movie to the second hour. Unless you’re a fan of the agricultural world and enjoy the endless scenes of cutting, tying and transporting wheat. At the beginning of the film, it was not a science-fiction action film, but an art-house film of world farmers.

If you control the wheat, you control the universe!

Throughout the running time, the viewer will be tormented by dialogues that aim to be deep and meaningful. But more often they are pronounced like instructions for assembling furniture from IKEA: functional, understandable, but terribly boring. The characters speak like this: they are giving a lecture about cosmic physics, and are not trying to save the galaxy.

Everything is very slow here

Of course, we know that Zach loves slowmo. But here he overcomes any boundaries. Snyder apparently thinks this concept is meant to add drama, but instead turns every outcome (and more) into American eternity, where you can calmly go to the kitchen, make tea, come back and not miss a second of the action. Convenient, of course, but there is a caveat.

The action looks really inventive in places. The fight scenes are powerful and brutal – especially attacked by Veldt, who takes up much of the second half of the film and is the new fighter between Cora and Noble (with swords, of course!). Pure Snyder aesthetic! Is this enough to forgive the film for its other flaws? Of course not.

Moreover, the antagonists in this film shoot from their bellies, reminiscent of imperial stormtroopers. We didn’t care about the heroes anyway, so no one could hit them.

There are bright moments here, but they are few.

The acting in “The Giver of Scars” is perhaps the only light at the end of the tunnel. Sofia Boutella and Ed Skrein try their best to give their characters input, but unfortunately the script is so flat that their efforts feel like trying to draw an emotional portrait using only a ruler and compass.

Although, I note that Ed Skrein still made a memorable space Nazi! But he would like to change his hairdresser.

For the rest of the characters, Snyder often has to spend time in strange flashbacks, which gives the two-dimensional heroes the opportunity to at least add a little to the group. The characters ride together to share their past and build bonds with each other before their upcoming battle. It looks dramatically awkward and unconvincing, all this only burdens the exposition of the film.

There’s also a robot with horns. That’s all you need to know about the film’s supporting characters.

We are promised director’s cuts! Not this

Snyder has already announced that director’s cuts of two films will soon be accepted, rated R and running about three hours. The release date is still unknown, but slow-mo fans will definitely be delighted, but we advise you to use your life more wisely.

This film is an indication that because it doesn’t need to be made into a movie, the director has simply lost the balance between style and editing. If Snyder decides to continue this franchise, he may need to reconsider his approach to making films where visual effects and slow motion scenes will be important to the plot and characters.

It seems that if Netflix just wanted to burn official money, they could have simply filmed the moment and added colorful filters – it would have been just as entertaining and perhaps even more meaningful.