Yep, Zack's signature cinematic schtick is heavily present again in this sequel to the last slo-mo fest imaginatively titled Rebel Moon Part One.
If you disliked the last one, be prepared for more of the same this time around. My favourite parts were the slo-mo crop harvesting (not joking), the slo-mo flour milling (not joking) and of course, the slo-mo flour bag moving (guess what... not joking).
Honestly the guy is a one-trick pony at this point. And to think we gave JJ Abrams so much stick over his lens-flares! He has nothing on Zack!
The story (such as it is) spends the first hour on what I'll generously label as "building the tension". However, between the slo-mo farming and a ten minute "round the table" exposition dump any tension rapidly becomes tedium as it just goes on, and on, and on.
Finally, after the hour mark, the battle does finally begin and runs through to the end of the film. In truth, this part is watchable at least and even has some nice scenes in it. But it makes no sense in the grander scheme of things.
See, the baddies need the small amount of grain the farmers produce so badly that they dare not simply destroy the village from orbit (some credit due for someone thinking this bit through at least) but here's the thing.
The ship is huge and has hundreds of crew and soldiers etc. It's part of some greater empire that has starships, advanced weaponry, machines that bring people back to life and so on. It makes no sense that they would "need" the grain that badly.
The only logical reasoning behind this is a bad story upgrade. See, this is clearly a bad riff on The Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven. In those movies, the bad guys were basically bandits threatening the village. It made sense that they would raid for food, since they weren't producing any of their own. But when you upgrade the bandits to a star-faring empire that logic falls down. Hard.
I won't even mention the drink-spitting reveal in the bowels of the dreadnought that the whole thing is, apparently, run on coal (no, I am not sh***ing you! It really is!) There are people shovelling coal into boilers, Titanic-stylee!
Now, I could go on and say that none of the characters are at all memorable. None of them have any real personality, and that some of them could easily be replaced by life-sized cardboard standees without any loss of fidelity, but that would be unkind to the actors. When you are given so little to go on, it must be hard to make a convincing performance.
I'll leave you with this final thought.
Apparently, this project was originally envisioned as a Star Wars movie and pitched as such to Disney/Lucasfilm. Given how poor the products are that come out of the mouse-house these days, just how bad was this script that they rejected it? I'm just sayin', is all.
SUMMARY: Slo-mo! More slo-mo! Even more slo-mo! Some action in the second half but no character depth or empathy. No reason to things. Starships that run on coal! Nonsense... just plain nonsense.
If you disliked the last one, be prepared for more of the same this time around. My favourite parts were the slo-mo crop harvesting (not joking), the slo-mo flour milling (not joking) and of course, the slo-mo flour bag moving (guess what... not joking).
Honestly the guy is a one-trick pony at this point. And to think we gave JJ Abrams so much stick over his lens-flares! He has nothing on Zack!
The story (such as it is) spends the first hour on what I'll generously label as "building the tension". However, between the slo-mo farming and a ten minute "round the table" exposition dump any tension rapidly becomes tedium as it just goes on, and on, and on.
Finally, after the hour mark, the battle does finally begin and runs through to the end of the film. In truth, this part is watchable at least and even has some nice scenes in it. But it makes no sense in the grander scheme of things.
See, the baddies need the small amount of grain the farmers produce so badly that they dare not simply destroy the village from orbit (some credit due for someone thinking this bit through at least) but here's the thing.
The ship is huge and has hundreds of crew and soldiers etc. It's part of some greater empire that has starships, advanced weaponry, machines that bring people back to life and so on. It makes no sense that they would "need" the grain that badly.
The only logical reasoning behind this is a bad story upgrade. See, this is clearly a bad riff on The Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven. In those movies, the bad guys were basically bandits threatening the village. It made sense that they would raid for food, since they weren't producing any of their own. But when you upgrade the bandits to a star-faring empire that logic falls down. Hard.
I won't even mention the drink-spitting reveal in the bowels of the dreadnought that the whole thing is, apparently, run on coal (no, I am not sh***ing you! It really is!) There are people shovelling coal into boilers, Titanic-stylee!
Now, I could go on and say that none of the characters are at all memorable. None of them have any real personality, and that some of them could easily be replaced by life-sized cardboard standees without any loss of fidelity, but that would be unkind to the actors. When you are given so little to go on, it must be hard to make a convincing performance.
I'll leave you with this final thought.
Apparently, this project was originally envisioned as a Star Wars movie and pitched as such to Disney/Lucasfilm. Given how poor the products are that come out of the mouse-house these days, just how bad was this script that they rejected it? I'm just sayin', is all.
SUMMARY: Slo-mo! More slo-mo! Even more slo-mo! Some action in the second half but no character depth or empathy. No reason to things. Starships that run on coal! Nonsense... just plain nonsense.