Zack Snyder’s ‘Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver’ Near Universally Rejected By Critics: “It Isn’t Good, But It Sure Is Something”
Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver has been released on Netflix, and critic reviews for Zack Snyder’s most recent cinematic endeavor have managed to be even more disappointing than the ones the previous instalment received in December of last year.
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Initially conceived as the pitch for a Star Wars film, Snyder’s Rebel Moon heavily borrows concepts from George Lucas’ highly successful space opera. Execution-wise, however, the films appear to take a few pages from Disney’s pathetic, uninspired attempts at milking the franchise.
While Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver did get a theatrical release in some theaters in the United States on April 12th, the film was made available on Netflix this past Friday, received with overwhelmingly negative reviews across the board.
On review aggregator site Metacrtic, the movie was met with a disappointing Metascore of 36/100 based on 23 critic reviews, with 4% positive (1 review), 78% mixed (18 reviews), and 17% negative (4 reviews), with many pointing out that this movie is even worse than the first entry in Snyder’s new series, Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child Of Fire.
The film isn’t faring any better on Rotten Tomatoes, where Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver was met with a disappointing 16% Tomatometer score based on 77 reviews, and a slightly less disappointing 53% Audience Score that took into account over 1,000 user reviews.
The only positive review on Metacritic comes from The A.V. CLub’s Jarrod Jones, who prefaced, ‘The director’s vision of an adult-oriented space opera is compromised by a PG-13 cut and an emphasis on far-too-familiar influences,” giving a B- to the film.
“The Scargiver is an unmistakable blend of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and George Lucas’ Star Wars, so obvious in its make that pointing out the origin of its parts is redundant,” Jones notes, later adding, “If nothing else, The Scargiver has a clearer direction than its prior installment, which allows us to spend more downtime with this over-large group of archetypes.”
Awarding the film 3 stars out of 5, The Guardian’s Jesse Hassenger prefaces, “The divisive director’s sci-fi follow-up is both original and derivative and will be unlikely to convert anyone, but there’s something charming about its sincerity.”
“Rebel Moon almost certainly didn’t need to be two multiple-cut movies. It probably could have gotten by as zero,” Hassenger asserts. “But as a playground for Snyder’s favorite bits of speed-ramping, shallow-focusing and pulp thievery, it’s harmless, sometimes pleasingly weird fun.”
The New York Times’ Amy Nicholson gives the movie a 5/10, writing, “A Zack Snyder picture is like everything and nothing else in the galaxy,” noting, “‘Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver,’ the second half of the director’s hammering saga about a bucolic village at the fringes of the universe forced to fight off its imperial overlords, pulls from as many influences as there are stars in the sky.”
Nicholson then notes, “A delirious, pulpy mishmash of knockoffs, “The Scargiver” isn’t good, but it sure is something,” later adding, “Snyder’s ostentatiousness is unmatched. His refusal to dial down any of his impulses — dramatic smooches backlit by a pink-ringed planet, priestly hats that resemble glowing pepperonis, a four-legged tank which totters like a hung-over armadillo — has an admirable resolve, even if it comes from an inability to say no to himself.”
Variety’s Owen Gleiberman also gives the movie a 5/10, prefacing, “he second chapter of Zack Snyder’s intergalactic epic is every bit as derivative as “Part One,” but the climactic showdown sizzles.”
Gleiberman would point out that, much like the first installment, Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver is “a sci-fi action fantasy so familiar and generic, so borrowed from and inspired by other things — it’s the 1977 ‘Star Wars’ meets ‘Seven Samurai’ meets ‘The Lord of the Guardians of the Rings of the Galaxy’ — that it’s already the theme-park version of itself.”
“‘Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver’ is a storytelling mediocrity, but as spectacle it has tumult and rhythm. It gives nothing away to say that in the end, the forces of good triumph,” he ultimately concludes.
The Telegraph’s Robbie Colin gives the film 2 out of 5 stars, prefacing, “This follow-up to last December’s first installment looks good, but this space opera never makes you care who wins or loses,” later adding that “nothing here or in the previous instalment will make you give the slightest fig who wins.”
“Yes, the world of Rebel Moon is richly imagined, even if its origins as an aborted Star Wars project still remain far too obvious,” he explained. “In place of storytelling, though, it’s built on unwieldy lore dumps: we’re given hundreds of details about this galaxy far far away, but no reasons to care about any of them.”
Empire’s Dan Jolin also gives the film 2 out of 5 stars, pointing out that the first Rebel Moon movie “was an enthusiastic but derivative mess: a ‘gather the team’ yomp through an overly familiar yet logically inconsistent galaxy, which brought together a bunch of vaguely defined characters as a not-so-Magnificent… Seven? Eight? Even that wasn’t clear.”
Specifically regarding Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver, Jolin notes, “Until the plasma starts blasting, The Scargiver is mostly about farming,” later adding, “All done with pre-industrial tools (and, er, anti-grav platforms; apparently in this universe they can make things float but they don’t have combine harvesters) and shot so lustrously and tenderly by writer/director Zack Snyder, it starts to feel like a weirdly high-def Soviet propaganda film.”
“It’s also about getting chummy with the humble locals — who somehow find time to weave personalised tapestries for each of the heroes — and sharing backstories,” he asserts, eventually concluding, “There are some notable casualties, but you’ll barely care. And, predictably, there’s a half-arsed tease of further Rebel Moon-y adventures. The not-so-Magnificent Five-or-Six-now, it seems, may ride again.”
Collider’s Chase Hutchinson gives the film a 3/10, prefacing, “Imagine a bad Star Wars fan film with a higher budget that runs for over two hours and you’ve got Snyder’s latest misfire for Netflix,” later declaring, “Not only is The Scargiver not Snyder’s The Empire Strikes Back, but it’s even worse than Part One.”
“The main problem the film just keeps coming back to is that the action isn’t up to snuff. Considering this is what nearly the entire last hour is focused on, it presents a serious problem,” Hutchinson laments, pointing out, “The culmination of The Scargiver starts to even more shamelessly lift from Star Wars, but this is only superficial. It doesn’t manage to bring the same resonance to its reversals of fate or reveals, even as it sets up for more”
Hutchinson then adds, “Not only does neither part of Rebel Moon work, but The Scargiver is such a downgrade that it could prove difficult for the franchise to bounce back for more,” as he concludes, “For those who have now seen these two, it feels more like a threat rather than a tease.”
IndiWire’s David Ehrlich gave the film a D (25/100 on Metacritic), prefacing, “Any real hope for the second part of Snyder’s Netflix epic has been dead since last December, but it’s still shocking to discover just how lifeless this movie feels.”
“‘Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver’ has been dead since last December, when the irredeemable first chapter of Zack Snyder’s hyper-derivative space opera was released “in theaters” and on Netflix to deafening silence,” Ehrlich writes.
“I’d hoped that ‘The Scargiver’ would pay off some of the story beats that were so agonizingly seeded in “A Child of Fire,” but I didn’t expect that Snyder would take the ‘me sowing/me reaping’ of it all quite this literally, or that both parts of the process would be equally unfun.”
He then concludes, “If this catastrophic bore of a film isn’t game over for “Rebel Moon,” then nothing will be able to stand in her way.”
Rogert Ebert’s Simon Abrams gives the film 1 out of 5 stars, as he prefaced inquiring, “Will there ever be a version of ‘Rebel Moon—Part 2: The Scargiver’ that makes the movie and its franchise seem essential?” as he alluded to Snyder’s plan to release R-rated versions of the films.
“Unfortunately, while I can’t review a version of “Rebel Moon—Part 2: The Scargiver” that I wasn’t allowed to see, I can say that I doubt more (or just more extreme) violence and sex will improve this joyless expansion of the previous movie’s Kurosawa-sploitation space opera,” he went on.
Abrams then concluded, “The problem with the ‘Rebel Moon’ movies isn’t that they need to be bigger or heavier to be better. If everything else feels as anemic and negligible as the non-sexual scenes in a floppy, overproduced porno, then I don’t think that adding more of everything will greatly enhance anything.”
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Comparing it to the first film, The Playlist’s Rodrigo Perez gives Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver a D- (16/100 on Metacritic), writing that this new entry in the series “is somehow even worse and barely justifies its existence on a fundamental level.”
“‘Rebel Moon Part 2’ doesn’t carry any surprises, suspense, or tension, relying solely once again on gratuitous spectacle and excessively overblown melodrama,” he adds, lamenting, “Much like ‘A Child Of Fire,’ ‘The Scargiver’ is exhausting, enervating, and exasperating, frantically flailing around with explosions, lasers, laser lightsaber-like swords, grenades, et al., but always failing to make you give a damn.”
“But when you talk about excessive spending and lack of quality control on a woefully conceived, arrogantly self-indulgent product, well, tag “Rebel Moon,” you are most certainly it,” he concluded.
The Times’ Kevin Maher gives the film 1 star out of 5, prefacing, “Zack Snyder’s Netflix space sequel is better than the first instalment, but that doesn’t mean much,” and later opining that Snyder “appears clueless as to how meaning in film is created, and loads this with so many harvesting shots that it defies any interpretation other than ‘sweaty guys with big muscles look cool using scythes.'”
He’d later note that “there’s a huge and enervating battle at the end, where everyone’s laser guns go “pew, pew, pew!” for about half an hour (not including the slow-mo sequences when they go “pwooaah, pwooaah, pwooaah!”) until Kora (Sofia Boutella), the dullard heroine, blows up a big ship.”
“You’d sell your granny for a sci-fi brain gizmo that could wipe the entire mess from your mind for ever,” Maher concluded.
Celebrated by Netflix for allegedly garnering 23.9 million views worldwide in three days after its release — according to the streaming giant’s own Top 10 of the week report, that is — Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child Of Fire was also met with lukewarm to negative reviews, receiving a disappointing 32/100 Metascore on Metacritic based on 38 reviews and an even more pathetic 25% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 144 critic reviews on release.
Counting chickens before they hatch, Netflix announced that Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child Of Fire and Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver are expected to get R-rated versions at some point later this year, both featuring up to an hour of additional content, with Snyder explaining, “It’s not just slightly different or a little bit more. There are big chunks of the movie that are different.”
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