Rebel Moon—Part One: A Child of Fire Was Over Before It Even Started

It’s hard to know if Rebel Moon—Part One: A Child of Fire’s issues stem solely from its intentional truncation. How much blame can fall on director Zack Snyder, America’s sweetheart, and the embattled visionary behind The Snyder Cut (among other films, too, if you can believe it)? Long before Rebel Moon—Part One: A Child of Fire hit theaters prior to its streaming release on Netflix, it was obvious to those in the know that the film we were going to get was not the real film. Or, it was, but edited down by about 50% and then, seemingly, a little bit more, with scenes skipping merrily along from point A to B with no clear path which connects them; a two-hour-and-13-minute film that feels like five minutes, in a bad way. Characters appear and barely speak (Djimon Hounsou is maybe done the dirtiest in this respect), relationships are forged with little foundation and, somewhere along the way, we’re all meant to not only care about what we just watched, but care enough to watch a second film.

It’s difficult to even fault this most pressing issue, when the film that you just watched is both obviously a hack job and explicitly, intentionally made for the sole purpose of Snyder Cut 2.0: The Rebel Moon—Part One director’s cut, Snyder’s actual, intended film, will be released, allegedly, sometime next summer. As explained by Snyder himself, the director’s cut, which will be rated R, is “almost like a different movie”—well, because, it probably is a different movie, based on what I and everyone else has already watched. As of right now, Rebel Moon—Part One: A Child of Fire is less a movie and more a collage of barely-connected scenes. According to Snyder, it was Netflix’s idea to release the movie in two cuts, something he admits he had never experienced before as a director usually compelled to release his own cut after the demand for it presented itself over time. He further explains that Netflix’s reasoning had to do with the scale and cost not being “responsible” with an R rating, which just doesn’t make sense at all when the film wasn’t produced with a meaningful theatrical release in mind; the rating of the film shouldn’t actually matter if it’s just going to streaming.

At any rate, here is what Rebel Moon—Part One: A Child of Fire is about, for now. In a universe referred to as the Motherworld, Kora (Sofia Boutella) lives on the prosperous farming planet of Veldt, led by Corey Stoll wearing a fake beard doing a weird European accent, and his horny wife. On Veldt, Kora moves rocks, broods, speaks in platitudes and spurns the affections of handsome, good-hearted farmer Gunnar (Michiel Huisman). Kora was rescued and brought to live there many years ago, after working for and living with the Imperium. The Imperium are a bloodthirsty entity which hops from planet to planet forcing the inhabitants into subjugation, and whose armed forces had slaughtered Kora’s own family when she was a child. But the Imperium finally makes its way to peaceful Veldt, where Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein), the ruler’s right-hand man, carries out a brutal execution and announces his plans to overtake the community. After a bloody altercation, Kora and Gunnar break from Veldt and the Imperium’s presence on a mission to, one might say, “assemble a team” in order to take on the bad guys.

It’s weird. While watching Rebel Moon, scenes happen, characters are introduced and speak to one another, things move along. The narrative and visual rhythm are undeniably off, but I can understand what’s happening and why. In the moment, nothing feels terribly egregious. But when you step back, everything suddenly becomes amplified, and you see that Rebel Moon is held together with spit and glitter glue and pipe-cleaners. By the time the credits rolled, I realized I don’t think I’d ever watched a movie this long that still felt so brief and bewilderingly abridged; where so much happened and yet nothing happened at all. 

Individually, scenes are often enjoyable enough, like the Star Wars Cantina rip-off scene, or the Harry Potter hippogriff rip-off scene, or the Jena Malone spider humanoid scene—the latter of which might be the best in the whole film. Malone plays Harmada, a grotesque arthropod monster whose home in a mining village was colonized to the extent that she now struggles to bear children. Like Harmada, there are other moments of unpleasant body horror; a patron at the Not Cantina who relays info to Kora and Gunnar is a netherworldly creature with tentacles affixed to a man’s body, using him like a puppet to speak. But as to be expected in a PG-13 movie meant for an R rating, it’s all missing something more. It’s annoying to know that we’re going to get it, and that it’s been withheld from us for nonsensical reasons.