Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiverere months back, in the review of Rebel Moon Part 1: The Child of Fire published in Icon, it was noted that the science-fiction film, written and directed by Zack Snyder, had been dealt a “swift and unfair hand” by critics at large.

At the review aggregator website Metacritic, it held an average of 36 percent rating, which flung the film straight into the red-zone (ratings of 30 percent or lower make for abysmal films). As more reviews were added, the percentage settled at the 31 percent mark, slipping slightly more into the bad category.

While that might have been unfair, Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver deserves its residence in that very red-zone. Currently holding at 35 percent, this film deserves better accomodation…in the 20 percent range, if not in the 10 percent.

Snyder is a hit and miss guy; with Scargiver he misses the mark by an entire playing field. The film could have easily been tucked into the last part, and that would have elevated Part 1’s overall experience. Instead Scargiver, which sets up the story for another film (or heavens forbid, a film series), expands the lingering plot thread from the last part by a full 10 minutes in total (the running time is two hours).

Arriving safely back to their home world after assembling a rag-tag group of mercenaries, rebels and former commanders, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a once high-ranking officer of an empire taken over by bad generals, and her company — including love-interest Gunnar (Michael Huisman) — are told to help with the harvest that their community has been working hard to gather for months, barter with their oppressors (who wanted the harvest) and, if negotiations fail, destroy them.

Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver clogs Netflix’s stream bandwidth with inane, unwarranted waste while a pitch-perfect tone and excellent performances elevates Laapataa Ladies into the classic category

In case one has not seen the first film, the harvest’s bartering had been the original plan that got them enslaved. In fact, their oppressors, led by the maniacal Atticus Nobel (Ed Skerin), still believe that the farming community is busy cutting crops for their evil totalitarian empire for months now.

After an unending series of shots showing men and women hard at work in the fields, we get to the action bits — once Snyder’s forte, now his downfall — followed swiftly by the promise of a sequel and the end credits.

Scargiver is an exercise of stuffing Netflix’s servers and clogging its stream’s bandwidth with inane, unwarranted waste (one can’t even call it content at this time). Swipe away to something better and you might just thank this review.

Laapataa Ladies

Now one film that deserves the space over at Netflix — and many other streaming services, since it is not exclusive to the platform — is the Kiran Rao-directed Laapataa Ladies, a gem of a film about young brides who get swapped by an honest mistake late one night.

Wearing identical wedding clothes with long veils that almost make it impossible to distinguish who is who, the two women from poor villages — Phool and Jaya (Nitanshi Goel, Prathiba Ranta) — newly married to their life partners, find themselves in a jam.

Phool, the more innocent of the two — and the one who has an equally innocent and loving husband (Sparsh Shrivastava) — finds herself at an unknown train station and realises that she doesn’t know the name of her husband’s town.

Taken in by a kind tea stall owner (Chhaya Kadam), Phool has it easy. Jaya, meanwhile, taken away by Phool’s husband, seems to have an ulterior agenda that seemingly — “seemingly” being the keyword here — shoehorns aspects that may take the story away from its innocent, original premise.

Here’s some good news then: it does not. The aspects lend an engaging air of mystery and weight to Jaya’s story and helps augment a strong message about education and independence into the mix.

While it does get somewhat preachy, the overall pitch-perfect tone and the excellent performances — especially by the actor of the hour, Ravi Kishan, playing a corrupt cop — elevates Laapataa Ladies into the classic category.

Reportedly made with a five crore rupees budget — which given India’s usually high cost of production is insane to fathom — Laapataa Ladies doesn’t cut corners in both the story and the production department.

This just goes to show that you don’t need big budgets or big-name actors to pull off a cinematic miracle.

Streaming on Netflix Rebel Moon Part 2: Scargiver and Laapataa Ladies are rated suitable for audiences aged 13 and over. Only the latter is worth your time

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 5th, 2024