A delirious, pulpy mishmash of knockoffs, Zack Snyder’s film isn’t good, but it sure is something.
A Zack Snyder picture is like everything and nothing else in the galaxy. “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. “Star Wars,” of course (yes, there are light sabers), and also “Mad Max,” Caravaggio, John Ford, European art-house cinema, World War II propaganda flicks, steampunk Victoriana, cottagecore girlies on Instagram and Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung.” Not only does the score boast two types of choirs (haunted child and Gregorian), but a single frame might include a robot dressed like the Green Knight (and voiced by Anthony Hopkins) next to a Conan the Barbarian clone next to some guy in overalls who looks like he just flew in from Bonnaroo. A delirious, pulpy mishmash of knockoffs, “The Scargiver” isn’t good, but it sure is something.
The first “Rebel Moon,” released on Netflix in December, made audiences endure a gantlet of narrative groundwork that’s fairly inessential and recapped here. In it, a farm boy named Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) and a secretive assassin named Kora (Sofia Boutella) assemble an interstellar team of protectors (played by Djimon Hounsou, Staz Nair, Elise Duffy, Doona Bae and others). Now, the story picks up five days before the squad must defeat a vicious army led by an admiral (Ed Skrein) with a bad haircut and worse attitude.
The script by Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten trips over its aspirations whenever any character talks. There’s not a single authentic conversation, just exposition dumps and soliloquies (the best of which Hounsou delivers). Finally, after an hour of speeches, we’re treated to an hour of rousing warfare. Primal, pitiless, agonizing carnage is where Snyder excels. He’ll kill anyone, even nice people, even grandmothers-turned-guerrilla warriors who just want to get back to folk dancing. And he makes it hurt.
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Source: Movies - nytimes.com
