Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver (2024) – Scarring

Released: 19th April
Seen: 28th April

On the 19th of April an interview with director Zack Snyder dropped where he delivered this quote:

You may love or hate my movies, I’m 100% fine with that but a vote against me is a vote for the focus groups. Know by saying ‘Snyder sucks’ you’re also saying “you know what? give me more focus groups! I want Happy Meals!

As one might expect, the second this phrase hit the internet there was a group of people who took issue with it, myself being one of them. This quote kind of speaks to the arrogance of Zack Snyder, how he seems to believe that his films are something so outside the mainstream and doing something so unique that we have to support him for the love of cinema. It is, truthfully, one of the most pretentious things that has ever been said by a director of mainstream cinema… it’s also absolute bullshit because, having now seen Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver, there’s truly nothing about it that goes against focus groups because it reeks of the most pandering studio bullshit one could imagine.

Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver picks up shortly after the first with the entire planet of Veldt returning home to try and continue their regular harvest after they believe they’ve dealt with the motherworld soldiers when Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein) was killed at the end of the last movie. Well, surprise, SOMEHOW ADMIRAL NOBLE HAS RETURNED! He’s not quite dead, he got better and now he is bringing the entire army of the motherworld to take out the people of the planet Veldt who are all now being led by Kora (Sofia Boutella) who still hasn’t told them everything about her tragic backstory and might not be able to if everyone dies in the super important battle that’s going to take up half of the film, a battle that happens for reasons that I’m sure mean something to someone but doesn’t mean shit to the audience.

The first Rebel Moon movie was actively hard to watch, the repeated threats of rape and the general blandness combined with a washed-out colour palette and overreliance on Snyder’s standard editing bullshit (Slo-mo, so much goddamn slo-mo) made it a film that was just irritating to sit through. Well, good news, this film got rid of the repeated rape threats… so we’re just left with it being bland and ugly, which for this franchise feels like an improvement. Once again every single shot is just varying shades of beige with an occasional not-quite-lightsaber thrown in every now and then because this is just Snyder’s rejected Star Wars script and he can’t be fucked to scrape off the serial numbers any better than he already did.

It’s wild to think that this is the film that got Snyder to roll out the “A vote against me is a vote for the focus groups” because Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver feels like they took the notes from a focus group and turned it into a checklist. There’s nothing here that’s particularly outrageous or interesting, it’s the same basic “We have to defend our home” plot that we’ve seen a billion times, the characters are so bland that the only reason I can remember the name of two characters is I have the Wikipedia page open and can work out who is who based on those descriptions. This isn’t interesting or weird enough to be a film that defies focus groups, it’s so bland that it’s basically a starter kit for how to make your own shitty Space Opera. Just do what this film did and add a personality and boom, you got a movie that might be worth a damn.

The big problem with Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver above everything else is that the characters are just so bland and forgettable. They aren’t so interestingly acted that you have to remember them, everyone feels like they’re phoning it in even in the most dramatic sequences, and there’s not enough actual character for anyone to latch onto. There is an entire scene where the main characters sit around a table and tell each other their tragic backstories, a thing most good films work into the plot naturally instead of literally having someone say “Let’s go around the table and talk about our secret pasts”. It’s in that scene where it becomes obvious that these aren’t characters or even archetypes, they’re warm bodies that we can see killed randomly without caring. I’m sure they would like it if we did care when major characters are killed on camera but it’s hard to do that when we have no characters worth giving a damn about (and also the film opens with a previously dead character being brought back to life so death means nothing).

What also hurts is that Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver looks awful. Once again there is talk of an R rated cut of this film being released in the future at some point and once again you can really tell where they cut stuff. It’s not even carefully fixed up so they can make it feel natural, either you can just feel the abrupt cuts that remove anything obscene or the weird framing gives away that there’s probably going to be something a little gorier happening when they do a future release. In general, the whole film is just badly edited, dragging on for an interminably long time for no reason beyond self-indulgence. Normally with a Snyder film the running joke is that if you removed all the slo-mo shots you could save a solid 15 minutes of film but here? Not only would you save 20 minutes easily, the film would flow better and the fight scenes might actually look somewhat cool. There’s also just a tone of slow boring shots that do not add to anything, almost like this film is stretched out to an absurd length for no reason other than they wanted to have a second film in this ‘franchise’.

There is an undeniable urge to want to find something about Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver to praise, it feels mean to just dunk on a film over and over again and especially for a filmmaker as passionate as Zack Snyder. While I’ve had problems with a lot of his films before it never feels like he’s phoning it in or anything, it feels like he’s putting his all into every film even if his all is misguided… not here, this film feels like he’s just running on autopilot. It’s just more of the same, more Star Wars but edgy bullshit that was annoying the first time and is now just pathetic. It’s not interesting, not enjoyable, barely coherent and a chore to sit through. Even the Star Wars Christmas Special was at least bonkers enough to be worth talking about several years later, will anyone give a damn about this film in 5 years? Sure the Snyder Cult will probably still talk about it but they also think that Netflix is going to buy the rights to the DC universe to allow Snyder a chance to complete his Snyderverse project so they aren’t exactly a sane metric to work from!

Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver is too damn boring to be worth your time, it doesn’t even make for decent wallpaper or background noise. It’s a list of cliches made by someone who thinks they’re being so original and unique but can’t be bothered to try being interesting. It’s a film that’ll be forgotten by most before it even finishes streaming, it’s not going to be any kind of classic and it’s going to be stunning if they keep making films in this series because it can’t be a good return on the investment. If disliking this film means saying I want more Happy Meals, then someone get me to Macca’s because I really want a Happy Meal right fucking now!