Rebel Moon is more concerned with franchising than storytelling. Its script is a series of unaltered tropes so blatant that it almost feels like plagiarism. The plot has an inciting incident, repetitive introductions, exposition dumps, and a forced climax. There's no resolution, progression, or emotional development. Characters are superfluous, cliche, shallow, and unmotivated. There's unnatural dialogue, heavy-handed themes, tensionless predictability, convoluted filler, bloated sequel bait, superficial world-building, and no ending. It's all just drawn-out and formulaic setup. Plus, the acting is often wooden, stilted, or dull. Overall, Rebel Moon is too hollow to function.
Technically, Rebel Moon is clunky. Its inconsistent imagery has movement, lighting, focus and angles, but drab colors and busy framing. The self-indulgent editing adds overused slo-mo, rushed pacing, excessive action, and wonky structure. Its sound provides voiceovers, genre elements, smash cuts, emphasis, stings, risers, and volume. The self-serious music awkwardly wavers between melodramatic and unimpactful. Its production design combines sci-fi, western, and fascism, but is wholly generic. The cast is replaceable and the CGI is uneven. Ultimately, Rebel Moon just doesn't offer much of its own. Viewers are better off revisiting the films that this one is imitating.
Writing: 3/10
Direction: 4/10
Cinematography: 6/10
Acting: 4/10
Editing: 4/10
Sound: 7/10
Score/Soundtrack: 4/10
Production Design: 6/10
Casting: 5/10
Effects: 6/10
Overall Score: 4.9/10
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