Title – Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)

Director – Zack Snyder (Man of Steel) 

Cast – Sofia Boutella, Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman, Charlie Hunnam, Djimon Hounsou

Plot – When the tyrannical forces of the universe threaten a peaceful farming planet, the mysterious Kora (Boutella) must traverse far and wide to find others who are willing to stand up to the forces of evil and bring about a new world order. 

“Never set foot on the wrong side of history”

Review by Eddie on 17/01/2024

A significant miss for both Netflix as a company and Zack Snyder the director, the duos much-hyped Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire is a DOA big budgeted original sci-fi whose very liberal borrowing of previously explored ideas and concepts makes for a lifeless feature film offering that is going to leave many far from excited for its already completed follow-up due to hit our loungerooms in April of this year. 

A film that many had hoped would return Snyder to the level he once operated at with his first three features Dawn of the Dead, 300 and Watchmen that all announced the arrival of a director with a knack for visuals and highly entertaining offerings, Snyder’s latest offering may not be to the same dire levels he found himself in with his last Netflix original Army of the Dead but Rebel Moon isn’t something worth writing home about. 

Sharing a budget with its yet to be released Part Two that exceeds $150 million and vaunted by Netflix as the dawn of a new property to get excited about, Rebel Moon had all the chances to become at the very least an entertaining and enjoyable sci-fi/action romp but its po-faced nature, uninspired acting, dour direction and completely lacking script make it a film that barely gets by more on its brief showcases of something that might have been rather than anything that actually happens. 

Seemingly set-up to be some type of grand space adventure that features (who would of thought?) an evil empire and a group of rebels determined to stick it to the man and not roll over, there’s certainly nothing ground-breaking or overly inspired about Rebel Moon’s foundation but the way in which Snyder and his hamstrung cast fail to ignite any of the potential cylinders the film could’ve fired upon is hugely disappointing, as a large universe waiting to be explored gets bypassed for a lacking dirty dozen type of adventure filled with video game CGI and more questionable accents than you can swing a rip-off lightsaber at. 

Never having been a director of much nuance, outside of the frequent and as to be expected use of slow motion (and even on a few occasions SUPER slow motion) here it’s hard to even imagine that this is a film from the same creator that bought so much energy to his early films and as Rebel Moon’s often poorly paced and uninteresting events takes hold and a collection of average to poor performances take centre stage from the likes of Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou and Charlie Hunnam, it’s hard to imagine what Netflix or Snyder thought they were creating here with such a forgettable and poorly executed attempt at launching a new property. 

Perhaps much like Justice League that true goodness of what was potentially available here will be on show in Snyder’s directors cut of the film that he has promised is “like a different movie” but if the directors cut is too be that it makes one wonder why we were ever gifted this lacking offering with Part Two already pushing uphill before its out to make us care about any more time in Snyder’s uninspiring world. 

Final Say – 

Not what fans, Netflix or Zack Snyder would’ve wanted as a final result, Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire shows very brief and minor glimpses of a film that might have been but overall it’s nothing more than a pale imitator of much better properties that we all know and love, making April’s new entry one that’s very hard to get excited about. 

2 big angry birds out of 5