Justice League director Zack Snyder’s latest movie, the Star Wars-inspired sci-fi film Rebel Moon: A Child of Fire, is in theaters now. How is it faring with critics? The first reviews have begun to appear online, painting a picture of its critical reception.
Rebel Moon stars Sofia Boutella as Kora, a traveler with a mysterious past who crash lands on a moon and begins a new life in a peaceful farming community. The peace does not last, though, and Kora must fight against Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee) and his emissary, Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein). The movie also stars Cleopatra Coleman and Ray Fisher, along with Michiel Huisman, Charlie Hunnam, Staz Nair, and the voice of Anthony Hopkins.
Snyder came up with the idea for Rebel Moon years ago and pitched it to Lucasfilm as an R-rated Star Wars movie. It didn’t go anywhere, and it later morphed into a TV series along the lines of “Game of Thrones in space” before Snyder changed things up again and sold it to Netflix as a two-part movie. Netflix and Snyder previously worked together on Army of the Dead.
Reviews have not been kind to Rebel Moon, which sits at a 32 on GameSpot sister site Metacritic and a 20% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Audience scores will begin to come in soon as people go to see the movie. You can see a number of review excerpts below.
A Child of Fire will be followed up by a Rebel Moon sequel called The Scargiver in 2024. A Rebel Moon video game is also in the works.
Rebel Moon
- Directed by Zack Syder
- Written by Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, Shay Hatten
- Starring: Sofia Boutella, Fra Fee, Ed Skrein, Cleopatra Coleman, Ray Fisher, Charlie Hunnam, Michiel Huisman, Staz Nair, and Anthony Hopkins
- Premiere Date: December 15 (theaters), December 22 (Netflix)
- Rating: PG-13
- Runtime: 2 hours 13 minutes
GamesRadar+ — 3/5
“Fans of Snyder’s heightened brand of stern, muscular filmmaking won’t be left wanting. And while the performances rarely extend beyond two-dimensional archetype, there’s still fun to be had with Charlie Hunnam’s insouciant turn as a wily pilot of the Han Solo school.” — Neil Smith [Full review]
BBC — 3/5
“There is something strangely endearing about Rebel Moon. It is honest-to-goodness, unashamedly stupid and derivative pulp tosh, and it is so blatantly a work of gushing fan fiction that it makes you want to go back in time to 1977 and shake the young Zack Snyder by the hand. He couldn’t have imagined that somebody would one day give him hundreds of millions of dollars to transfer the scribbles in his notebook to the silver screen, and yet, that is what eventually happened. It’s heartwarming. The film may not be up to much, but the story behind it proves that even the most far-fetched childhood dreams really can come true.” — Nicholas Barber [Full review]
The Guardian — 1/5
“The director’s attempt to replicate Star Wars for smartphones is an ugly, unforgivably dull and self-serious mess.” – Charles Bramesco [Full review]
Indie Wire — D-
“It’s hard to be even morbidly curious, let alone excited, about any future iterations or installments of a franchise so determined to remix a million things you’ve seen before into one thing you’ll wish you’d never seen at all.” — David Ehrlich [Full review]
IGN — 4/10
“Despite a great ensemble cast, Zack Snyder’s space opera is let down by a derivative patchwork script, mediocre action sequences and a superficial story that fails to live up to its expansive promise.” — Hanna Ines Flint [Full review]
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