Rebel Moon 2: The Scargiver
NOTE: This Cranky Curmudgeon post is usually on Monday, as in Monday With Mildred, aka Cranky. But yesterday was the Women's Strike 2024 so I, CFR, took the day off and did some self-care and did not post. But today is Tuesday and now, enjoy the read.
As I complained to CFR the other day, I'm tired of not being able to find anything on streaming that I really enjoy. I'm tired of only seeing old movies, or films I've already reviewed. If I want to get newer movies that I might like, all I have to do is pay out a lot more money. This sequel to a movie I thought very little of was not what I wanted, but there it was, deadline is looming, this will be short.
Zack Snyder is one of those golden (white) auteurs (male) filmmakers who continue to get big contracts to make big movies. Out of everything he's ever done I've only truly liked one of them, and it was a zombie film from twenty years ago. He's the king of Hit Each Other With Buildings Over And Over, and heroic story ending fight scenes that last a half hour. On re-reading my review of the first Rebel Moon movie I see that I didn't hate it, and actually had a couple of nice things to say about it. There will be none of that here.
Well, except for the very long backstory at the top of the film, which I thought looked like a nicely animated comic. It was over long and kinda clunky but I liked it anyway. But then the movie proper began and, between several extended cut scenes that lays out the whys and wherefores, there was a lot of clunky bonding between the Seven Samarai Kora has brought back to Veldt to fight the entire Imperial Force with a couple of farmers carrying blunderbusses and a few swords. Not kidding. They even made the one shot blasters look like a blunderbuss.
I kept getting the impression that the filmmaker thought he was creating High Art. Something operatic and grand. I couldn't get past the classical quartet live scoring a huge stabby death scene and being completely in sync with the mayhem. Did they choreograph the mayhem to an existing score, or was the quartet so good they improvised the whole thing and never missed a beat? That's what happens in a reviewer's brain when she's watching a galactic remake of Caesar's Ides of March mishap.
I also needed help during the huge battle. From my notes, "I don't even understand the super slow motion battle sequences So Hard I can't even mock them." Was it to give the viewer more time to wonder why The Bestest General Who Ever Lived In Any Universe seemed flummoxed time and again by the Nazi Chic bad guys using the same Tank and Infantry maneuvers that are in our time over a hundred years old?
Eventually I settled into watching it like I did the dreadful second movie in The Divergent series. You just wait for the end. Which in this case came with a deux ex machina to end all d.e.m. and some lines of dialogue that had me scrabbling to google the movies, and YES. I think they should have had a big, blinking neon sign over the victors' head that says "SEQUEL THIS WAY". Will I watch it? Catch me in two years for the answer.
As with the first movie, if you're a science fiction movie fan who can overlook all manner of overdone sf tropes and odd choices from a filmmaker who is obviously pleased with his High Art masterpiece, then go ahead and watch this. The experience has already faded like a scar in my mind. Maybe there is magic in the title.
LINKS:
CFR: In Addition
Well I did see Rebel Moon part 1 and it was ok. I don't know if I will watch part 2. I know that I have said before that Cranky is the BEST and totally helps me all the time. She helped me here too.
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