Rebel Moon: Part 1 - A Child of Fire Sharply Mimics Star Wars… If Star Wars Was Lame
By Chris Knight
Rating: C
It had been my sincere hope — one might even call it A New Hope — that, after watching Rebel Moon: Part 1 - A Child of Fire on its opening day at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, I would be compelled to rush home and tell you it had be seen in 70 mm on the big screen, and that you had only six days left to do that before it moved to Netflix.
Alas, I can’t in good faith suggest you plunk down cinema-ticket prices for this well-intentioned but ultimately spineless Star Wars knockoff. I can barely even recommend it on the streaming service, unless you’re already a subscriber, have two-and-a-quarter hours to kill, and want to see how writer-director (and for some reason cinematographer) Zack Snyder shakes up the pieces of George Lucas’s space opera and lets them fall in a slightly new arrangement.
Let’s start at the beginning, with a prologue that, while narrated by Anthony Hopkins, could have been written out on a scroll and unspooled among the stars. It’s an exposition dump about a galactic empire in turmoil after the death of its king, and a rebellion brewing in distant colonial corners against the brutal rule of the Motherworld.
On one such rock we meet Kora (Sofia Boutella), a former soldier now working as a farmer on a simple agrarian planet that, for unknown reasons, uses almost no technology except those sliding doors so favoured by futuristic societies.
When Kora’s home is visited by a deputation from the Motherworld, intent on rooting out rebels and also taking all their crops, she decides to gather a mercenary force to help save them.
In short order she touches down on a variety of planets and collects a ragtag collective of fighters that includes fellow farmer Gunnar (Michael Huisman), pilot and smuggler Han Solo (Charlie Hunnam), shirtless nobleman and dragon-tamer Tarak (Staz Nair), assassin extraordinaire Nemesis (Doona Bae), former Imperium general Titus (Djimon Hounsou) and the BloodAxe siblings, leaders of the rebellion, played by Ray Fisher and Cleopatra Coleman.
Did I say Han Solo? I meant Kai. Sorry about that.
Their chief adversary? That would be Ed Skrein as Atticus Noble, whom I took to calling Admiral Cudgel because his weapon of choice is a big stick, though one he wields to great effect. Kora’s fighting style, meanwhile, takes place at two speeds — slow motion and even slower motion, the better for the film to revel in her bad-assery.
Rebel Moon isn’t a terrible movie, but it pales in every comparison to the Star Wars universe. And it courts that comparison at every turn, thanks to how much of that movie’s blood seems to run in its veins. There are laser swords, an intergalactic watering hole frequented by space pilots, and even a British robot, voiced by Hopkins once he’s done reading the opening narration.
The forces of the Imperium, meanwhile, are equal parts 21st-century Marines — bulky carry-everything clothes made of kevlar and grit — and 20th-century Nazis, what with the high collars, shiny boots, and a predilection for little gold lapel pins. Snyder has made a lot of noise about his world-building ambitions, but world-borrowing might be closer to the mark.
It does occasionally match Star Wars for risibility of dialogue, as in the scene in which Kora spells out her entire life story to another character, concluding: “I’m only telling you this so you know who I am.” My son and I have now added “I’m only telling you this ...” to our list of stock bad-movie line openings, alongside “I made your favourite” and “As we both know...”
And like another famous space opera, this one will Strike Back in April with Rebel Moon: Part 2 - the Scargiver, and then Return sometime after that with a planned part three. Snyder has suggested he may make even more sequels after that. Do I believe him? Let’s just say I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
Rebel Moon: Part 1 - A Child of Fire. Directed by Zack Snyder. Starring Sofia Boutella, Charlie Hunnam, and Ed Skrein. Plays one week in 70 mm at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox, then from Dec. 21 on Netflix.