Rebel Moon – Part 2: The Scar, review of Zack Snyder’s film

Regardless of whether he is idolized by a small army of fans ready to fight virtual battles for him (impossible to forget the hammering of the “Release the Snyder Cut“, with which the director’s admirers invoked the director’s cut Of Justice League), or almost mocked by those cinephiles who want to give themselves a tone at all costs, Zack Snyder he knows what he’s doing. For better or for worse he has created his own recognizable aesthetic, made up of slow motion, photography desaturated and statuesque bodies (especially male) perpetually sculpted by light and shadow. All of this to celebrate a modern superhumanism that tastes more like a perfume and underwear commercial, but which, thanks to its aesthetics, is captivating. This vision of the world as a large gym (he himself has one at home where he trains every day) has reached its peak thanks to the combination with Netflix: the review of Rebel Moon – Part 2: The Scar it must therefore necessarily start from here.

Second part, as the title indicates, of Rebel Moon – Part 1: Daughter of Fire (review here), the movie And streaming on the platform from April 19th and picks up the story exactly where it stopped. As already announced, these two parts are actually a provisional version: in fact it will also be released Snyder Cut of Rebel Moon, which promises to be six hours long, cruder and forbidden to minors. In Snyder’s idea Rebel Moon it is in fact a large universe to be expanded into different media: for films think about two six-film trilogiesthen to TV series, comic books and also a podcast about the robot Jimmy (originally dubbed by Anthony Hopkins).

In short, Snyder and Netflix are trying to do what Marvel Studios has done over the last 16 years: create a franchise successful based on a shared universe. The director didn’t succeed with the DC characters and Warner Bros.but he’s trying again with a story of his own creation and the support of the platform streamingdesperately looking for original intellectual properties to be linked to its brand. This commercial ambition is enough to do Rebel Moon an enjoyable product? Yes and no.

The plot of Rebel Moon – Part 2: violence!

By Snyder’s own admission theRebel Moon universe is the director’s cut of Star Wars: as a child he was struck by George Lucas’ films, which pushed him to say “one day I’ll make films too!”. The story is exactly that: Kora (Sophia Boutella) is an Anakin Skywalker who has changed his mind: among the most ruthless and effective warriors of the Mother Worlda military empire based on oppression, decides to retire to private life on planet Veldt, inhabited by farmers. When the ruthless Admiral Atticus Noble arrives (Ed Skrein) to endanger the tranquility of the inhabitants, Kora decides to join the rebels, going in search of the best warriors to convince them to join her against the empire.

Rebel Moon – Part 1: Daughter of Fire: Charlie Hunnam is tired of superficiality

In Rebel Moon – Part 1: Daughter of Fire we mainly got to know the personagesarriving at a final fight between Kora and Noble which is a taste of what happens in this second part. After a beginning in which the protagonists tell something more about their past (and which are clearly hints of what will be explored further in the series and comics), this chapter finally gives the public what it wants: 45 minutes of pure action and fighting. There plot of Rebel Moon – Part 2: The Scarmaker it can therefore be summarized as follows: violence!

The fight scenes in Rebel Moon – Part 2 do not disappoint

Snyder knows his audience perfectly and knows that today the plot is overrated: spectators are increasingly distracted, the attention span has dropped drastically and films are more successful the more clips of scenes are recast on TikTok. AND Rebel Moon it seems specifically conceived with this in mind: it is a work that works both when broken down into many small fragments and when enjoyed as a whole. Story is secondary, aesthetics are everything. So it doesn’t matter if the swords held by Kora and Noble are the fusion of swords laser from Star Wars with the Bride’s katana Kill Bill: the important thing is that they look good on the screen. And in fact they do: the action works and, without having to introduce the characters one by one, the pace improves in this second part.

Rebel Moon – Part 1: Sofia Boutella and Ed Skrein are the leaders of Snyder’s saga

Of course, focus on the willingness of the spectators to reconstruct everything puzzle once the various containers are available it is a gamble, but Snyder and Netflix know very well that this is a way to retain their audience. For those who have the desire and the time, the universe of Rebel Moon it can become like a game of searching for the new missing object. Wanting to make a risky parallel, the Princess Issa from Rebel Moon, which everyone searches for but no one finds, is a bit like Samuel Beckett’s Godot: he never arrives, but in the meantime things happen. And so it is with these films: you wait for an extra impetus to arrive, an original idea that isn’t there. But in the meantime, what a display of muscles and props!