Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire (2023)
War comes to every world
And it comes to this - the final review of 2023. There’s really an endless number of movies I could go after to do, but I was excitedly waiting for the one I’ve opted to go for to come out, and decided that that’s what we’ll do. There’s been a bunch of reviews for it all over the place, and a bunch of them aren’t exactly positive - so one has to wonder is it a case of a director just not getting a break from an audience, is it actually not all that good, or perhaps is it just a bunch of people not appreciating what’s there? Much like the transition to a new year, there’s a lot of tumultuous waters of uncertainty clogging the view - so the best way is to find out directly and experience it ourselves. Tonight, we look at the first part of Rebel Moon.
I apologize, but I’m not gonna read out the entire title every time. I do like the idea of it being like a book, where the series title is Rebel Moon and the book’s title is A Child of Fire, but the “Part One” just makes it seem like a television show. Our story here is a classic - and by a classic I mean it. The core premise is literally Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai except in space and with a few twists. Don’t know what that is? A village of farmers find themselves in an oppressive situation where their stores of grain (including what they need to survive themselves) are claimed for an opposing entity. In the case of Samurai, this was bandits - here in Rebel though, it’s actually the empire of humanity itself. Yeah, that’s right, the mother world has coming knocking as they look to root out some rebels, and this little farm town is now their dinner ticket even if it kills them. After some events transpire, it’s up to a mysterious war run-away and a remorseful village member who somewhat caused the incident to go out into space and find someone to help them stand up to the military before they return to claim their planted prize.
Each “player” character that gets acquired has their own thing going for them - with at least part of it usually being a reason for them to hate the empire as it currently is. Maybe you came from a planet they invaded, and ransacked it’s towns and murdered your parents. Maybe you were a general who tried and stand up against them, forced to surrender and now suffer guilt over what happened to you soldiers as you erode away at a gladiator arena. Of course, the main goal is the current resistance that the empire is out there looking for in the first place - after all, if it wasn’t for them it’s not like the little village would be in this situation to begin with. Each of them feels like they have a bit of a backstory, and enough of it is usually given to get you at least a little interest in the character, although when it comes to the breadth of it you’ll be looking at the main character herself. Here, we get actual flashback story drops shown to us to elaborate on who she used to be - but we don’t get the full story yet.
The actors all do a good job here. Although some have less to work with than others - the General and the Resistance for example end up joining into the movie far later than most the others, and in turn end up getting way less screen time than the main. That said, although it is plenty much an ensemble of characters, it is still largely the main characters flick to drive. They do a pretty good job with what they got - at times perhaps a bit muted or overblown depending on the situation, but never coming off as poorly acted. There’s a robot character in the start that gets rather underutilized in the movie, but the interactions between him and one of the town ladies is quite wholesome and well done - and does leave me hoping we get more of this robot in the next movie, but that’s more there than here. It’s pretty solid as far as I’m concerned in the acting department, with the actors doing well with what they have for their characters and the amount of screen time, with even most of the side characters doing a good job - just keep in mind that not all characters are equally developed.
The King’s men have arrived.
The effects department has a bit of a mixed bag here. For the most part it’s all pretty well done, but there are moments that aren’t as well loved as other ones are. Lots of times it tends to be some of the backgrounds or scenery bits that feel less impressive as opposed to characters and guns of the sorts. Costume department gets to go to town, with plenty of things from rural farming viking-like attire all the way over to brain aliens that symbiote-style control people with their little brain tentacles. The mix of practical and computer is pretty well balanced, and outside of those few times where things don’t look quite as polished or hero-shot like, I think there’s really only one thing that’s probably going to be a hot spot of contention: Slow motion. The dude loves his slow motion, he uses it all the time in his movies. Yes, it can make for some really cool moments during action - like emphasizing impact on a dude landing on his head. Other times, it seems a little silly - like after a “charge while shooting” moment with only the main character on the screen next to a wall shouting. It doesn’t really make the movie worse (just draws out a few things that aren’t always necessary), but I know some people hate slow motion stuff, and I have to admit the impact of it is lessened when it becomes overused.
The audio is balanced well. You hear whatever you need to hear, and you don’t find yourself wondering what a person said at any given time. The music does it’s thing as typical for a movie - it’s there to help support the scenes and emotions in said scenes, but vanishes from my head after the movie is over. It’s good at hitting those emotional soft queues and amping up the action without overriding actors delivering lines. The background sounds also help make things feel relatively lively as desired, with classic menacing space ship approaching sounds and gun batteries firing in space - because we aren’t here for realism we are here for entertainment! Sounds are quite satisfactory in this thing, so there’s no complaints from me there.
There is also probably all manner of things to talk about for the thinking person. I mean, you get some of the well-trod stuff like “evil soldiers being evil because sexual assault” thing (and if I’m being real that’s more common than you would think in movies), and some of the things that you could pull as obvious such as the classic good versus evil. There’s depth there that isn’t entirely tapped into - probably in part because it’s a two part movie - but there’s plenty other little tidbits on war, revenge, justice, paying debts, and all sorts of that kind of thing. Again, some of them are probably more surface level - paying one’s debts doesn’t come up crazy frequently in comparison to the theme of kindness, which some might find a bit odd in a movie that has a decent number of action scenes and people being rather unkind to one another. To bring it to a point - you can find stuff to think about in the movie, but you don’t have to.
I need mroe of this robot.
I enjoyed this movie. i think people go in with some wonky expectations because of the comment the director made about it being a Star Wars pitch. It’s really not one in the slightest- it’s far more like someone spilled some slightly less grimdark Warhammer 40,000 into their Seven Samurai and let the guy who did 300 direct it. Does it have similarities to Star Wars? I mean, it’s in space, it has a robot, someone has swords, lasers, and there’s good guys and bad guys. The plot execution feels way off from what Lucas did in those Original movies, and in all honesty I think this movie was better executed than some of the newer movies from that franchise. It ends on an obvious sequel bait - as if “Part one” in the title wasn’t enough - but it actually does work as a stand alone movie - most likely on account of it being the part one. The actors do good - and some might recognize some of the actors from various other things - the characters have some level of intrigue or at least a “cool factor” to them that makes you somewhat interested in what’s going on, it normally looks great while doing it, and it’s got enough little ideas and tweaks in there that calling it a carbon copy of anything would be somewhat disrespectful. It’s possible some of the characters could benefit from an extended cut, but I also feel like it could potentially hurt the flow of the movie which at the moment isn’t too bad - a decent mix of action scenes and explanations/slower moments. Go into it to watch it on it’s own merits and you’ll have a better time than if you expect it to be something it isn’t - but isn’t that the honest truth for most movies?