Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon Director’s Cut suffers from several problems the original versions also were infirmed with, but the ones that stuck out the most to me were the films are more violent with gore and nudity, but none of it is particularly intense or exciting because Mr. Snyder falls back on the same tropes he used too much in the original, which are the overuse of slow motion without taking to account dramatic effect and the same desaturated color palette to the point at times it looks like sepia tones. If you are going to stylize the light and color artificially then there should be a reason for it otherwise the settings start to lose their distinctiveness and cease to be interesting.
Slow motion, violence and gore should be used to create impact and not just because now you can do this. Look at the best westerns, space operas and even horror films and they use these tools to increase the emotional state of the viewer and always with the skill not to bore or disgust the audience so much as to manipulate their emotions. Snyder’s use of such tools make his work appear amateurish when clearly he is an established professional with some great works under his belt particularly from the 2000s and his cut of Justice League was epic in scope.
Here the pacing is off and the action is repetitious and when combined with flat characterization and a derivative story, it makes the flaws appear worse. Another element Rebel Moon needs desperately are some moments of levity. Almost nothing in these Director’s cuts feels exciting save for one fight sequence toward the end aboard The King’s Gaze where everything in the hanger is falling at an ever increasing angle while the main protagonist and antagonist are locked in mortal combat. There Snyder uses his tools to great effect and subsequently that sequence is my favorite part of the movie regardless of which version i watch.
I really wish the Director’s Cut of Rebel Moon was an improvement over the original, but it’s not. I’m sorry Mr. Snyder, but you are capable of telling a better visual story than this and if you continue with this series, i hope you consider what your audience wants and expects because there are lots of problems with Rebel Moon, but while you will need time and perspective to see what many have pointed out, that doesn’t mean you can’t turn this around by moving on to make the next installment better. So good in fact, maybe it will redeem the flaws in the first ones. Rebel Moon is streaming now in all available forms only on Netflix.
(C) Copyright 2024 By Mark A. Rivera
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