REVIEW -- Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire (2023)

When I heard Sofia Boutella would be the lead in this film when it was first announced, I definitely was excited as I was impressed with her work as a villain in Kingsman: The Secret Service as Gazelle alongside Samuel L. Jackson in that film and in Star Trek Beyond as the alien warrior woman Jaylah who would befriend a young Captain Kirk. Her work in The Mummy and Atomic Blonde were impressive as well, but the former stood out to me the most, so I was really excited to see what she could do in a starring/lead role. Kora isn't a bad protagonist, but like many problems with this film, it's the poor narrative's fault more than the actors within it. Sofia Boutella did the best she could with what she was given here to work with. 

When talking about this film with a friend, I jokingly compared Kora's backstory to She-Ra: Princess of Power and Marvel Studios' version of Gamora. Both estranged women were taken in by evil dictators at a young age and raised in their image to carry out their will. Something happens to force them to rise up against the tyranny of their former master(s) and they use those very same skills that they have honed against the forces of evil. Kora's backstory is not very different from that. Kora's home planet was destroyed and her family was killed by an Imperium commander named Balisarius, who adopted her and raised her as his own daughter in the same vein as Thanos (Gamora) and Hordak (She-Ra). She would become a bodyguard to Motherworld princess Issa, who was expected to bring in an end to the Imperium's conquests across the universe. Unfortunately, she was unable to protect Issa and the rest of the royal family when they were assassinated while Balisarius assumed the throne and decreed to continue Imperium's conquests. After failing in her mission she would become abandon Imperium's ideals and become a deserter, which brought her to Veldt in an attempt to have a normal life and put all of that behind her until the start of this story. 

It is revealed in the film's climax that Kora's real name is "Arthelais", a wanted deserter and fugitive, hence why Kai was so enamored with collecting her bounty from Noble. 

(Laughs) If you doubted Snyder's Star Wars comparisons, you can't ignore Kora's introduction into this story. She is presented as a farmer, much like young Luke Skywalker in A New Hope. Danger arrives at his doorstep and it takes him away onto an adventure. Let's not overlook the fact that she's wearing a Jedi-like cloak for a majority of this film too while they are traveling off-world to various planets. Snyder knew exactly what he was doing with the Star Wars comparisons and it was to the point where it was bordering on comical and pathetic. 

Kora is convinced that if the village on Veldt is able to enlist the aid of both the Bloodaxes and enstranged former Imperium genius general Titus, that they would have a fighting chance against Noble and his forces of the King's Gaze. Gunnar had previous dealings with the Bloodaxes in the past after selling their village past harvests to the Bloodaxes, which had earned the ire of Motherworld in the first place. In a sense, Veldt can place the blame on their current predicament solely onto Gunnar's shoulders for getting them involved. He only made the matters worse by arguing with Sindri in front of Atticus Noble and letting on that they had more than enough grain to share and sell, as he allowed his greed and poor judgment get the better of him. 

I didn't care for Gunnar from the start as I had him pegged to be the one who would end up selling out their village on Veldt. He was the one who disagreed with the village's leader, Sindri, and caused him to get killed by Atticus Noble after revealing that they had enough surplus to share with the Imperium's troops since he had had dealings with the Bloodaxes in the past. This forces him to see the error of his ways and joins Kora in recruiting warriors for the village's defense. 

For the vast majority of this film, he's left looking at Kora with puppy-dog eyes standing from afar in almost every other scene. I can't speak for anyone else, but I need a lot more than that to convey that he and Kora have some sort of romantic connection to each other. He's just THERE for the rest of film, not really contributing to much of anything until the film's final act. Most of the time, he feels like an unwanted passenger to Kora's Mass Effect-style side quest to recruit all of these crew members to stop the Reapers... err Imperium/Motherworld. 

His biggest contribution to this story is his bold refusal to paralyze Kora once they were all captured by Kai during his betrayal, only to turn the tables and free everyone for they could fight back against Noble and his troops. He does kill Kai though, so I guess that's something since a lot of the film tries to convince viewers that Kai is his rival for Kora's heart. I personally didn't see that at all, but to each his and her own. 

Charlie Hunnam's Kai is a character I really wanted to like, but even before his betrayal, he came off as trying a little too hard to be this film's Han Solo in a sense. C'mon... he's the ace pilot who comes to their aid on a whim at the most convenient time, much in a similar capacity as how Han Solo was introduced in Star Wars: A New Hope (a la a bar scene/fight) and leads them down the path towards finding other powerful allies. It's almost as if Snyder was begging people to see the Han Solo comparisons. 

He's that cunning and charismatic thief/criminal or rather "loose cannon" archetype that everyone would love to have in their band of unlikely heroes. He's that character that is begging for that redemption to prove that he's willing and capable of doing good things, but this film doesn't provide him that satisfaction. Zack Snyder goes with the swerve approach, looking to shock and awe at that point of the story, but he botches the landing with the execution and the impact and significance is lost here. 

I think Kai's betrayal would have had much more impact if we (the viewers) were treated to more signs of him coming around to the idea/notion of heroism instead of looking to make a quick buck as the starship pilot that Kora hired on Providence. In hindsight, I have laughed at Charlie Hunnam's comments in interviews that it was his sole purpose in his performance not to convey Kai's pending villainy in his mannerisms and facial expressions. I hate to tell him, but it didn't work. 

I'm going to sound like a broken record by the end of this review but this narrative did the actors absolutely no favors. I think Charlie Hunnam's Kai was the biggest casualty of this script's narrative and he won't get a chance to redeem himself in the sequels as he was promptly killed off in this first outing. I do appreciate the attempt to misdirect viewers, but Kai was leading Kora and Gunnar like cows to slaughter from the start. He was merely rounding up all of his most wanted bounties to collect one big payoff all at once. To his credit, he wasn't lying when he confessed to Kora that he had one last thing he needed to do before setting his life of self-preservation aside to be able to fight with honor. That last job ended up being selling out Kora and her allies for the bounties on their heads to collect the payoff of a lifetime for capturing all of the wanted enemies of Imperium.  

Djimon Hounsou's General Titus felt like he was robbed of any character development and background due to this film's jarring editing and cuts. Kora's recruitment of him took less than ten to fifteen minutes to convince him from continuing to waste away within that hole in the wall where he resided. 

According to the Rebel Moon wiki, Titus was a general for the Imperium, but he turned his soldier against the ways of the Imperium at the battle of Sarawu. He was forced into submission by the superior forces of the Motherworld and surrendered, only for the Imperium to kill all of his men. Rather than end his life, the Imperium banished him from the Motherworld to live his life as an outcast, forever haunted by his mistakes. The Imperium later put a bounty on his head and Titus found himself on Pollux, where he chose to spend his days fighting to the death in an arena. When he wasn't fighting, he was drinking himself into a stupor. This was how the burgeoning Veldt resistance found him just outside the arena. They came seeking his genius military mind so that he could lead Veldt to victory against the encroaching forces of the King's Gaze. Initially reluctant, Kora managed to convince him to join their cause on the promise of revenge against the Motherworld.

Kora sought to recruit Titus for his brilliant tactical mind for battle and saw him as a pivotal piece in terms of defending Veldt from the Imperium since he was familiar with their tactics and strategies. 

Djimon Hounsou's General Titus was another casualty of this film's editing and narrative. He's repeatedly called this "genius" but we as viewers see no evidence of that. It should not have been too hard to demonstrate a small example of his tactical prowess in the film's climax or in one of many of the flashbacks of his or Kora's time as part of the Imperium's forces. 

In the film's first hour while the story begun on Veldt, I thought mechanized knight that would be known as "Jimmy" was the most intriguing character in this arc. He was quickly described as the last of his kind, who were considered obsolete after the royal family that they were assigned to protect were assassinated, leaving them without a purpose. The Motherworld's forces took to bullying and abusing him since they had no reason to fear any retaliation from his strict programming and protocols. As a result, I thought that the story was leading us to believe that he would be the one knight that would evolve past his programming and establish his own sort of free will. When the "rebellion" started on Veldt, he had no part to play in that matter when Kora started her quest of recruiting powerful allies to defend the village. Instead, he ran off and was never to be seen again, despite befriending the young woman (Sam played by Charlotte Maggi) who Kora saved from being possibly gang raped by those soldiers. 

Jimmy befriended the local farm girl, Sam, while he was cleaning himself off in the river after Marcus (one of the many soldiers left in the village following Atticus Noble's initial visit) knocked him into a pile of dung. Jimmy stated that Sam reminded him of Princess Issa, who he (and other mechanized knights like him) was programmed to love and protect. After listening to his story about the assasinated king and princess, Sam changed his outlook on his own existence. When ordered to kill Kora and Aris by Commander Faunus who was using Sam as a human shield, Jimmy made his own decision and chose to fire on Faunus, instead and fled from the town. Jimmy ventured out into the wilds of Veldt, found the corpse of a snow-elk in a forest, and took its antlers as a crown. This was reminiscent of a crown of daisies Sam had made for him, at least on the fundamental level of fashioning something natural into a crown.

It made for some very awkward pacing and motivations in terms of starting this film out. One would not be foolish to think that one of these legendary mechanized knights would be ideal candidates to want to fight back against the Motherworld, especially one that has been discarded and regarded as useless to their forces. I thought Kora would have jumped at the chance to recruit this powerful ally given her own ties to the royal family that would be revealed later on. 

I could be wrong about Jimmy as the closing moments of the film see him among the many who greet Kora and her new allies back home to Veldt and he's one of many prominent figures teased in the teaser trailer for Part Two: The Scargiver. 

"These swords became my path out of grief."
- Nemesis, A Child of Fire

After her children were killed by the Imperium, Nemesis cut her arms off and replaced them with mechanical gauntlets as part of an ancient rite of passage used by the warriors of her home world. The new arms allowed her to wield her molten-metal blades. She became an assassin and killed sixteen high-ranking members of the Imperium along her path toward achieving revenge for her children. She later inhabited Daggus, which was ruled by the Imperium, who extracted everything useful from the planet while leaving little for its inhabitants. Nemesis was able to navigate the alleys and nooks and crannies and she used these skills to protect the exploited miners of that world.

"There is a difference between justice and revenge."
- Nemesis, A Child of Fire

Nemesis was my favorite character in this film from the moment I first saw her in the trailers from her design alone. Her backstory is even more compelling to me, given her sacrifices to wield her sabers that are heated with her cybernetic gauntlets. Her passion for justice and ultimately revenge for her children is conveyed when she's first introduced in the battle against the spider-like alien who has taken one of the children from Daggus as her own to feast upon. Nemesis isn't without emotions as she sympathizes with the creature, who has lost her children in the wake of the harsh conditions and circumstances on Daggus as well, but not so detached from the task at hand where she would condone another child to be lost to apease another's villainy. Sadly, this sequence was both her introduction and personal highlight to this film as she's not given much else of note to do. 

I'm optimistic that will change in Part Two like the rest of the mercenaries who were hired to defend Veldt. On a side note, I need a figure or statue of this character like NOW. She's too bad ass not to have merchandise of her already on store shelves. Fortunately, Diamond Select Toys have already announced figures and statues of her and Jimmy are on the way. 

Originally from the planet Shasu, Darrian Bloodaxe was a member of the Black Mountain rebels, which was the inspiration behind his face tattoos.

The Bloodaxes fought against the Imperium on their own with limited resources in a spree of hit-and-run attacks under the leadership of Devra and Darrian. They messed with supply lines, but ultimately never had much effect on their foes due to the difference in scale between the two factions. Nevertheless, the Imperium took notice and Regent Balisarius sent Admiral Atticus Noble to the system where the Bloodaxes could be found to hunt them down. Noble found it difficult to locate them and needed to restock on supplies, doing do on Veldt, where Darrian had purchased grain to feed his own soldiers the previous season. This put Veldt in danger, so when Kora and the farmer Darrian had previously dealt with, Gunnar, arrived where the Bloodaxes were hiding out on Sharaan, Darrian followed his heart and joined their cause of protecting the moon from the impending assault. They didn't get far before engaging with Noble and his men on Gondival. Darrian commanded the portion of his rebels that followed him to support Veldt in a battle against Noble's fast-attack launch and personally struck the final blow that would send the ship to the rocky shores below, however, he was fatally wounded in the process and went down with the ship.

Ray Fisher is completely unrecognizable in this role to me, especially after seeing him previously in Zack Snyder's Justice League. That being said, the Mad Max: Fury Road facepaint and costume isn't doing him nor Cleopatra Coleman's Devra any favors in my humble opinion. You can lump E. Duffy's Milius into that comparison too when her character looks painfully similar to Furiosa from that film. To say that the Bloodaxes have had such a significant role in this film's lore up to this point and they aren't even shown onscreen properly until the third act right before the film's climax is another casualty of this film's poor narrative. Gunnar's previous dealings with the Bloodaxes are the sole reason why Veldt was drawn into the conflict with Imperium in the first place and set the events of this film into motion. 

Darrian joining Kora's cause was a fargone conclusion in my eyes as they were directly responsible in the first place for getting Veldt involved. Darrian was duty and honor bound to repay that debt to this planet of peaceful farmers for providing food to his soldiers when they could have chose to do nothing. 

Devra Bloodaxe was a member of the Bloodaxe family born and raised on the planet Shasu. She became a member of the Black Mountain rebels and eventually led the Bloodaxe insurgents to a few small victories over the forces of the Motherworld. At one point, the group purchased grain from Gunnar, who later sought their support in defending his home, offering to pay them, again, in the surplus of grain they were growing in the Veldtian farming village. By that time, the Bloodaxes were settled on the planet Sharaan, where King Levitica's kindness was enough to sustain the needs of the insurgents, so she refused the call. Her brother, Darrian, was warmer to the farmer's needs, and took those among the rebellion who were willing to fight for the threatened moon, knowing they'd never be able to stand up to an Imperial dreadnought. Meanwhile, realizing that Gunnar's group discovering their location on Sharaan would mean Admiral Atticus Noble of the Imperium wouldn't be far behind, Devra moved her people away from the planet.

I suspect that her refusal to aid Veldt will come back to bite her in the ass after she realizes that Noble attacked Sharaan in hopes of flushing them out while her brother, Darrian, would fall in the battle on Gondival against Noble's soldiers following Kai's betrayal. I could see her and the surviving Bloodaxes coming to Kora's aid on Veldt in their darkest hour when Motherworld returns to exact their revenge for Noble's near-death. 

Milius was a refugee from a farming world similar to Veldt, but one that had already gone through the feeding of the Imperium armies that decimated the planet. They will appear in Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire portrayed by E. Duffy. Milius is named for the writer and director of Conan the Barbarian, John Milius.

Milius lived on a farming world, but the armies of the Imperium one day came for their food, leaving behind a wasteland. Milius survived and later joined Kora's group to defend Veldt from a similar fate. 

Like previously mentioned, I couldn't help but laugh at the painfully obvious comparisons to Mad Max: Fury Road's Furiosa in terms of this character's costume and overall design. We don't get much from Milius in the short time that they are introduced into the story. Milius joins Kora's cause in the third act with Darrius Bloodaxe as one of his many followers. 

Tarak was a member of a noble family, but after his family had a run-in with the Motherworld, Tarak wound up owing a debt of Daram symbol - 300,000 to Hickman, a Neu-Wodi rancher, Hickman, for whom he worked as an indentured servant to pay it off. Honor-bound to see out his debt, he initially refused to join the Veldt resistance when they came to ask for his help. No fan of the realm, Tarak would glady fight with them if his debt were paid, but Kora and Gunnar didn't have such an amount. Hickman offered them a wager, instead. Tarak could attempt to tame Beatrice, Hickman's bennu, and if successful, Tarak's debt would be cleared. If he failed, however, Kora, Gunnar, and Kai would join Tarak in chains. They agreed and Tarak was able to ride Beatrice, so Hickman allowed him to leave.

(Laughs) When I saw Tarak riding Hickman's bennu, Beatrice, I jokingly suggested to a friend while watching this for the first time that Snyder should have recorded that scene to the sound of Never Ending Story's "Limahl" theme. For the sake of all things holy, Tarak's beast-taming abilities had no significance in a goddamn thing for the rest of this film. The amount of time that went into how he tamed and rode that bennu was pure insanity to me, especially in comparison to how many other things were cut out of this film and left on the editing floor. Zack Snyder said that Tarak's backstory like the rest of the other recruited allies that Kora picked up, would be explored and revealed in Part Two. 

Atticus Noble was noble-born of the Motherworld. He attended the Academy Militarium and joined the Imperium forces, eventually working his way up to the rank of admiral. His master, Regent Balisarius, entrusted him to hunt down the Bloodaxe insurgents at the far reaches of the realm. It took Admiral Noble longer than he'd planned, so he stopped on Veldt to restock food supplies to feed his army of 5000. He chose a Veldtian farming village he had learned was a previous supplier of the Bloodaxes, selling them a few thousand bushels of wheat during a previous season. Sindri, the father of the village where Noble landed, initially rejected his request, but when Noble asked Gunnar for a second opinion, Gunnar offered what he believed to be a mutually-beneficial solution. This solution, however, suggested that Sindri had been misleading Noble, so Noble chose to end his life in front of the villagers present. Seeing this, the villagers were given a more accurate impression of how they would be expected to behave in the presence of the Imperium, but unknown to Noble was the fact that the wanted fugitive, Arthelais (now going by "Kora") was present in the village and would inform the villagers of the true nature of the Imperium, encouraging them to prepare to defend themselves.

Noble gave the village ten weeks to produce the grain the passengers of the King's Gaze would require while the village looked to Kora to protect them, and both groups sought out the Bloodaxes for their own purposes: Noble to destroy them and Kora to recruit them to their cause.

Noble would end up cornering the Bloodaxes and Kora's ragtag band of rebels, thanks to Kai's betrayal, only to be left for dead at the hands of Kora on Gondival. He was later picked up and revived by the Kali (the clandestine figures that power the technology of the Motherworld) of his ship. 

Ed Skrein has a knack for playing these bad guys that you love to hate and it was no different here. I don't fault Skrien for this but whole fascist, Nazi-inspired group of villains is a tad much for me, especially when this film has a laundry list of Star Wars comparisons as is from start to finish. In a bizarre way, I can see why Snyder went that route as it definitely works to get the point across. 

Marvel Comics fans might remember him as Francis Freeman / Ajax in the original Deadpool or as Zapan in Alita: Battle Angel. He also appeared in three episodes of Game of Thrones as Daario Natharis in Season 3. He will reprise this role of Admiral Atticus Noble in Part Two: The Scargiver. Noble's work is far from done -  Kora and her friends aren't off the hook when Noble is coming for payback after being assigned his marching orders from Balisarius himself. 

Regent Balisarius is the highly decorated commander and leader of Motherworld's Imperium forces and the one who adopted Kora as his daughter. She became his child, protege, and student. Balisarius and the people of Motherworld trained her, broke her, and rebuilt her in their image. Balisarius even pulled strings to make his daughter the personal bodyguard of Princess Issa.

At the end of Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire, a defeated Noble’s body is recovered by the people of Motherworld.

Through technology, Noble talks to Balisarius in a different realm. Balisarius is disappointed to hear that his daughter is part of the blossoming insurgency.

He tasks Noble to crush this insurgency to the last man and bring his daughter to him alive. Balisarius plans to crucify her in the shadow of the Senate. In case Noble fails, he will be the one executed in Kora’s place.

Simply put, Balisarius is the "true" final boss of Rebel Moon. He's the essentially the Emperor Palpatine-like figure who is behind all of the Imperium forces that Motherworld has been using to conquer and enslave countless worlds across the universe. 

Sharp eyed Marvel Cinematic Universe fans may recognize Francis Martin "Fra" Free as Kazimierz "Kazi" Kazimierczak from the Hawkeye Disney+ series. He was digitally aged up to portray this elderly character for this film.