- Starring
- Sofia Boutella, Charlie Hunnam, Anthony Hopkins
- Director
- Zack Snyder
- Rating
- PG-13
- Genre
- Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
- Where to watch
- Netflix
- Release date
- April 19, 2024
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
Die Hard” stands as a prime example of a film that emerged from rejected scripts meant for other projects. Originally conceived as a sequel to the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle “Commando,” the script underwent significant revisions, transforming into the iconic action thriller starring Bruce Willis. Likewise, the scripts for Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scaregiver and its prequel “A Child of Fire” were that of a rejected Star Wars trilogy. As to their potential iconicity…
Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver
Picking up immediately after the events of Part One, Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver begins as Kora and her ragtag band of hand-to-hand combatants prepare the farm-tool-wielding agrarian Viking Space Amish for war against spaceships and automatic laser rifles. However, Fortune’s favor is left to question as they quickly learn that the resurrected Atticus Noble and his armada will arrive in just five days’ time.
Will Kora and her group of forgettable strangers be able to come together as a team and lead her newest adoptive family and Discount Bradley Cooper to victory against the vastly superior forces of the evil Space Soviets before they steal their cereal? What do you think?
Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver Review
If you thought that Rebel Moon – Part One’s video-game cut-screen-team-builder-Kings-Landing-Bowl-of-Brown-of-sci-fi-and-fantasy-grab-bag-slow-mo-done-better-by-everyone-else-less-fun-than-a-burnt-taint-of-a-what-the-hell-did-I-just-watch was something special, get ready to shave your wookie and French kiss Rian Johnson because holy crap The Scargiver gives new meaning to meaninglessness.
Rebel Moon – Part One was just unwatchably bad, but The Scargiver has traversed the waters of that Rubicon and reached the shores of So Bad It’s Good. Without a single redeemable quality, from its overbearing and melodramatic score to the absolutely mortifying stupidity of its premise and everything in between, Rebel Moon – Part Two should make everyone involved reexamine their lives.
Cinema Sins, The Critical Drinker, Pitch Meeting, and Honest Trailers may actually melt down trying to limit their jibes and observations to fit their normal runtimes. Every scintilla of dialogue would embarrass a middle-aged virgin Dungeons & Dragons fan-fiction writer, and each performance is a masterclass in over-acting. Even the one thing that Zack Snyder can be counted on to deliver cool, slow-motion shots is a disaster. The Scargiver represents the worst use of slow motion since Georges Méliès first invented it for his 1902 “A Trip to the Moon”
What’s more, the film is a continuous stream of logical inconsistencies and a rushed hybrid of brutishly exposited backstories and character arcs that read like a glitching AI-authored wiki visually slapped together by drunken blind monks who’ve only read of movies. Why can’t the Space Soviets find grain literally anywhere else? How is it possible that a small village of sickle-waving farmers could ever produce enough grain to feed an entire planet? Why do the farmers use hand sickles and hover-carts? If they don’t have a problem using hover carts and spaceships, why, in the name of transvestite alien parasite hookers (that’s a thing in the first one), don’t they use tractors and other mechanized farm equipment? The list could go on for pages!
But I say screw it. Rebel Moon – Part Two is laugh-out-loud bad and Worth it, but only if you are with friends, have in your possession copious amounts of alcohol, and take full advantage of the following drinking game:
Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver Drinking Game
Take a drink:
- When grain is referenced or said.
- Every time someone survives something unsurvivable.
- When you forget a character’s name.
- Every time grain is shown in slow motion (DO NOT DRINK EVERY TIME THAT SLOW MOTION IS USED. YOU’LL GO BLIND).
Take two drinks:
- When someone you don’t care about dies (not an extra – they have to have spoken at least a line).
- Every battle cry (celebratory or otherwise).
Take a shot:
- When the farmers spend time doing something that they absolutely don’t have time for as they prepare for certain annihilation (e.g., going to bed, having a party, or sewing banners).
- When the farmers accomplish something in a day, that would take days or months to accomplish.
- When someone gives an inspirational speech.
Bonus Rounds (optional):
- Take a shot every time RoboAnthony Hopkins shows up on screen for no reason.
- Take a shot for every deux ex machina (i.e., every time something conveniently and nearly miraculously saves the day).
- Take a drink every time that you say to yourself, “How did this get made, or how did this cost $166 million.”
WOKE ELEMENTS
They Had Extra Bowls
- Both Kora and secondhand Furiosa adopt or already have androgynous Women’s March haircuts.
- I concede that that’s a super nitpick, but there weren’t really many other instances.
When Is A Girl Boss Not
- Technically, Kora and Cosplay Furiosa are girl bosses, but even that is handled with incompetence.
- Both get pretty wrecked but both spindly armed waifs also deal out 80s roided-out action hero amounts of damage.
James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
15 comments
MannyJV
April 23, 2024 at 8:06 am
Now I feel like I have to see this. I’m getting Battlefield Earth vibes. I watch Battlefield Earth every now and then just for a laugh.
James Carrick
April 23, 2024 at 8:34 am
Yes. Exactly. This is 100% for you.
Bunny With A Keyboard
April 23, 2024 at 11:05 pm
Is that the haircut where she has one of her temples shaved? I call that the Lobotomy haircut.
People may question my use of the word “she” there, but the only time I’ve seen a man with that haircut was in the original Planet of the Apes.
James Carrick
April 23, 2024 at 11:25 pm
You cut up his brain, you bloody baboon!
CoffeeMe
April 27, 2024 at 11:02 pm
Someone tell Snyder, “…or so they thought” isn’t made original by changing it to “…or so they believed” even if it’s spoken slowly by Sir Anthony Hopkins. I’m just starting the second one now. We’re not off to a great start.
CoffeeMe
April 27, 2024 at 11:22 pm
Maybe I’m desperate to find something likable in this hot mess, but I kinda like the music.
Bunny With A Keyboard
April 28, 2024 at 10:21 am
There’s a decent number of otherwise abysmal shows and movies out there with some good soundtracks. Whether the music is good has no bearing on the rest of the movie.
CoffeeMe
April 28, 2024 at 12:31 am
Robot Guy needed more development. Actually, every single character needed more development. Wait: that would make the movie even longer.
Nevermind. We’re good.
Nita
April 28, 2024 at 11:46 am
Anything with a Mary Sue who can beat men twice her size should get woke label by default. And she wanted to assassinate a child, but she “did nothing wrong”. If a male character did that he would be a villain.
Sweet Deals
April 28, 2024 at 3:32 pm
We’d have to make at least one exemption for Pippi Longstocking. This beloved, red-haired Swedish girl lives in a beautiful mansion with her horse and her monkey, her mother is in heaven and her father is never home, she is fabulously wealthy sitting on a pile of gold pirate treasure but has no grasp of its value, she never goes to school, she routinely bests stupid criminals and vicious pirates with her super-strength and lives to brag about it, and she also repeatedly shames pompous adults. She does whatever she pleases and gets away with it. Danger and peril never seem to catch up with her.
Of course, Pippi Longstocking is a children’s wish fulfillment fantasy. Kids who read about her know that what she does can’t possibly happen. Even Pippi’s friends Tommy and Annika recognize that Pippi has a rather loose grasp on reality and ordinary kids who tried to do what she does would likely get seriously hurt or in big trouble with their parents. But they go along with her impossible adventures anyway because it’s fun and it’s more than they could have ever hoped for.
There is a subtle difference between a wish fulfillment fantasy heroine and a girlboss, however. Girlbosses are too mean, too shallow and too dull to be any fun.
Bunny With A Keyboard
April 28, 2024 at 4:40 pm
The problem is that few female character stories ever evolve past this point.
Look at the evolution between Superman and Spider-Man. While Superman has no real consequences, no stakes, and never makes mistakes, Spider-Man does mess things up and has to learn as he goes. Look at how things went with his uncle.
Even Superman is bound by various codes that few female characters get.
Boys get the lessons of responsibility and the like because society expects them to grow up to be men, but princesses are never taught how to be queens in any sense of ruling capacity or the like.
As things go backwards and tomboys are just thought of as male rather than recognized as the full spectrum of what women can achieve, expect things to hold this level of stagnation.
Nita
May 11, 2024 at 5:25 pm
Even Superman who is ridiculously overpowered has the kryptonite.
The superstrenght itself is a challenge because imagine the consequences of angry young Superman punching an annoying schoolmate with full strenght…
Superheroes are specifically designed for boys as a metaphore for growing up because boys irl gain “superstrenght” during their puberty and they have to learn to use it wisely.
Real life superheroes are heroic, protective men with morals.
Real life supervillains are domestic abusers and rapists who use theit physical advantage to harm those who are weaker.
Modern Mary Sues have no kryptonite, they don´t need to learn anything and the whole world has to bend around them to grant their wishes. There is nothing to learn from them. They are not even funny in the over-the-top way, cheesy way. They are narcissists´ power fantasy.
Robert
May 15, 2024 at 9:51 pm
no way you can label this as “based”, toxic femininity is the basis of this attempt at a movie. the acting is horrible from all accounts but the lead is so unbelievable its not even funny, she can barely speak English for Christ’s sake let alone make any fight scene. yes a well trained and disciplined women can best a poorly trained man but she neither comes off as well trained or physically fit enough to best any of the enemy’s she faces in this farce. if it weren’t for the Hollywood strikes this movie probably would never have been given any attention but alas here we all are desperate for entertainment only to be confronted with a hot mess like this.
James Carrick
May 15, 2024 at 11:19 pm
The only thing that I disagree with is to the extent that it effected this entry in the series. She was barely a part of the movie and most of her girl bossness happened off camera. For something be Woke, something has to actually happen. Even a turd has substance, just not the kind you want to bite into. 30 minutes of slow-mo grain harvesting, 10 minutes of redundant exposition dumps, 50 minutes of in comprehensible battles, and 5 minutes of What’s Her Face fighting just wasn’t enough to bother lowering the rate.
I marked Part 1 significantly lower, because at least she was a part of the story: a bad part of a horrible story, but a part of it nonetheless.
healthguyfsu
July 12, 2024 at 3:56 pm
I have never and probably will never watch this. It’s a shame because I am a huge fan of Charlie Hunnam.
I even watched that King Arthur movie that bombed several times just because I really like the persona he brings to the screen.