Falling right into the red-zone with a paltry score of 32 out of 100 on the review aggregator site Metacritic, the first part of Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon, titled A Child of Fire, has not been fairly judged. It is not brilliant or even groundbreaking, but it is also not bad.

Yes, it does have some aspects of the original Star Wars trilogy— the good rebels standing against a totalitarian empire, a cruel commanding enforcer, a prodigal saviour, a smuggler with a ship, a slenderly built monotone-voiced robot, and a farming community. But if you have read sci-fi novels from Issac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Frank Herbert, Robert A. Heinlein, Orson Scott Card and Dan Simmons, you know this set-up is typical of fantastical science fiction epics.

Snyder’s film, which is quite long and oftentimes has a lot of bad, unconvincing CGI, tilts towards these fantasy novels set in galaxies far, far away.

The saviour in this film is Kora (Sofia Boutella) — we soon learn she has another name — who crash-landed on this habitable moon two years ago, and was taken in by the happy farming community.

The first instalment of the new Star Wars film, Rebel Moon,is a watchable movie though it is not great by any means

Happiness, however, is a fleeting emotion in this galaxy because the farming community is soon visited by the militaristic Imperium soldiers from the Motherworld who, according to their warped commander Admiral Nobel (Ed Skerin), want all of their hard harvested crops — and of course, their subjugation.

Kora, with the help of Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), a wuss of a guy, sets off on finding rebels who can help mount a defence against the Motherworld. They hire a bounty hunter with a ship who takes them to distant worlds, from where they recruit a fallen general of the Imperium, a cyborg sword master, a prince whose home world was destroyed, a rebel leader and a few of his willing followers (the utterly wasted lot is made up of actors Charlie Hunnam, Djimon Honsou, Doona Bae, Staz Nair, Ray Fisher, respectively).

The entire film is a build-up to the next part due out in April, but even as a standalone enterprise, the miniscule and very predictable story does quite well on its own. However, the performances and the character development are severely lacking — as one expects from Snyder’s films.

Snyder has not had the most consistent of careers as a “visionary filmmaker” (he is far from that), but this time the reviews are simply not kind. Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child of Fire, is not a visionary product, but it is quite a bit better than Snyder’s recent return to the zombie genre (Army of the Dead was atrocious), or most of the stuff Netflix produces.

Streaming now at the top-spot, Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child of Fire is rated suitable for ages 18 and over. In my opinion, it is suitable for ages 13 and over

Published in Dawn, ICON, January 7th, 2024