My Thoughts on "Rebel Moon – Chapter Two: Curse of Forgiveness"
(This is the poster for Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver AKA Rebel Moon – Chapter Two: Curse of Forgiveness, the second part of Zack Snyder's two-part space opera epic, Rebel Moon.)
Well, it's been a long time coming, but I'm finally doing it: I'm reviewing Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver AKA Rebel Moon – Chapter Two: Curse of Forgiveness. I'm glad I got to watch and review a movie that was released this year. I was starting to think that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was going to be the last 2024 movie I would watch and review before I posted my New Year's Eve Recap, and that I was going to have to end up watching movies like Venom: The Last Dance and Weekend in Taipei until they either came out on VOD (video-on-demand) or on Blu-Ray 💿. That might still the case with those movies, since it's looking more and more likely that I won't be able to see either movie while they're still in theaters.
But, at least I managed to get this one in before the year ended. Netflix didn't give me any problems, I was able to access it no problem lickety-split, and that stupid message that pops up telling it doesn't recognize this household never came up once. I'm guessing either that was a one time fluke or Netflix listened to the backlash and complaint and decided to lift all restrictions on password sharing because that was such an unpopular move for them to crack down on password sharing since let's be real, that's how the majority of people watch Netflix, and all streaming services really.
Few people who watch Netflix actually have Netflix accounts themselves, and instead borrow the passwords from someone they know and use their account to watch Netflix. Because Netflix is expensive now, it's no longer the deal that was before, and on top of that, it's expensive to own all of the major streaming services. You'd have to be rich 🤑 or well-off like aunt and uncle are. So, I'm glad I was able to access Netflix to watch this movie without being blocked and being forced to go through the hassle of getting Netflix to accept my PS4. If it stays like this, I'll be able to watch and review Skull Island and Terminator Zero, as well as Wednesday Season 2 when that comes out.
I should also mention before I talk about my thoughts on the movie itself, but I watched the R rated director's cut. The way Zack Snyder intended. That's probably the best thing about waiting so long to watch and review this, the fact that I didn't have to wait until the R rated director's cuts were out and base my review on the far inferior PG-13 version. I wrote my review of Part One based on the PG-13 version, but before I actually watched Part Two, I actually watched the R rated director's cut of Part One just to see if the R rating and longer length made any actual difference, and to refamiliarize myself with the story and the characters since it's been a long time since I've seen Part One.
Believe me, it does. The R rating makes all the difference in the world. The director's cut of Part One pretty much wastes no time in showing you that it is R rating because there's an entire prologue that was not in the PG-13 version. There's blood 🩸 and nudity, like there's a shot of these Imperium soldiers stripping these women ♀︎ who they claim are priestesses completely naked and then branding them on their chests. Man, between this and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Zack Snyder sure has a thing for people being branded. Except here, the branding is shown as a more overtly negative thing than a positive or morally ambiguous thing as it was in Batman v. Superman with Batman branding people or threatening to brand people like he did to Lex Luthor in the prison at the end. He was only doing it to bad people, or people most people would consider bad, whereas the Imperium is doing it to people that people would mostly consider good, priestesses.
At first, I wasn't sure what the point of this prologue was other than to show how evil the Imperium is and also to give Noble a more proper introduction. But after the scenes from the PG-13 version came on, like once we got the Veldt stuff, I figured it out: it was to give this one side character a backstory. If you recall, if you've seen Part One, there's a scene earlier on in the movie where the girl ♀︎ almost gets raped by a bunch of Imperium soldiers inside a barn that they set up in, and Kora rushes in and saves her. Well, before Kora intervenes, there is one soldier that actually stands up for this girl ♀︎, and tries to prevent the others from raping her, but pretty much fails and is held down and forced to watch until Kora shows up and kills all of the rapey soldiers.
Yeah, that guy, that one soldier who had humanity and decency to try to save a girl ♀︎ from being raped, he's the character who's given a backstory in the prologue. He's what the prologue completely centers around. His name is Aris, and he's given a much larger role in the director's cut than he had in the original PG-13 version. In that version, he was only in two scenes, and then he was completely gone, never to be mentioned again. Well, in the director's cut, he's given a name, a backstory, and becomes a recurring side character throughout the film. We see how he becomes more attached to this village and switches sides to help protect the village against the Imperium, and we see him form a bond and relationship with that same girl ♀︎ that he tried to save but Kora ended up saving.
I don't know how it is in the PG-13 version of Part Two, but I'm guessing that was where Aris was given more screen time, and where he was given a larger role considering how the story plays out, there's no way they couldn't have just cut him out entirely. But, I didn't watch the PG-13 version of Part Two, so I don't know. But, in the director's cut of Part One, Aris has a bigger role from the start, and he's a side character all the way to the end of Part Two when he gets the girl ♀︎. But, since I mentioned that scene in the barn, it is so much better with the R rating when you could see all the blood splatter 🩸 and the heads and body parts being blown up, and they aren't cutting away from the gory kills or digitally removing the blood 🩸. That makes it such a more satisfying scene.
The narration by Anthony Hopkins at the beginning of the PG-13 version of Part One is also absent, but his character, JC-1435 AKA "Jimmy" or "James," has more screen time in the director's cut than he did in the PG-13 version. Although, he still doesn't do much except standing in fields looking cool, watching the other characters from afar. If you want to see him do stuff, and see him kick ass, you'll have to watch Part Two. And he does, he does kick a lot of ass when he actually shows up. Even still in Part Two, James doesn't do a whole lot or have a ton of screen time, and there's only a couple of scenes where we actually see him fight.
One time towards the middle of the movie where he kills these Hawkshaws who were sending transmissions to the King's Gaze (the Dreadnought that Noble commands) to tell them about Kora and the other warriors' plans, and one time towards the end, when he shows up to save Titus, Tarak, and Milius from this group of Imperium soldiers and a mecha tank (like it's literally a spider tank) and completely mops the floor with them. He's pretty much a one man army, and he's completely indestructible as far as we know. None of their guns are able to damage him. I bet the Imperium was really wishing at that moment that they didn't make their killer robots indestructible. Makes you wish that James had been more involved in the battle than he was. Maybe they wouldn't have lost as many villagers if he had been on the battlefield from the very beginning instead of waiting until the last minute. As it is though, he just comes across a deus ex machina.
One thing that struck me about the director's cuts of both parts, but especially Part One was how much sex and nudity there was. I already said that the prologue has some gratuitous nudity with those priestesses on Aris's planet being stripped naked and branded by the Imperium soldiers, but there's other scenes with nudity too, more scenes with boobies on display. There's two sex scenes in the movie, one at the beginning between Kora and Den, and one between Noble and a tentacle monster. That particular sex scene is the one that's meant to be weird and uncomfortable 😣 and show that Noble is a freak and a degenerate because we see Noble getting hickeys on his chest from tentacles, and at the end of scene, we see him deepthroating a tentacle.
We saw glimpses of this scene in the PG-13 version, but here we see more of it. Like, the tentacle hickey part is the longer in the director's cut and the tentacle deepthroat was completely absent in the PG-13 version but is present in the director's cut, and we see more of Noble's naked body. We see his butt, and that isn't the only time we do as we see his butt in the final scene when he's resurrected and put in that tank thing and plugged up with all those tubes. It's kind of like 300 or Watchmen (2009) in that way where there's a lot of sex and nudity in between all the bloody and gory action sequences 🩸, which is fitting because 300 and Watchmen (2009) were also directed by Zack Snyder.
The director's cut of Part Two, also has some sex and nudity in it too, but not as much as the director's cut of Part One. There's really only one major sex scene in Part Two between Kora and Gunnar. Yeah, they become a straight up couple in Part Two. And we see the aftermath of a sex scene that happened off-screen, between Tarak and this random old lady ♀︎ in the village. We see them in bed 🛏️ together and we see the older lady ♀︎'s boobs as she and Tarak get up for the day. I guess Tarak has a thing for MILFs, or GILFs more accurately.
For this reason, I kind of stuck to calling the director's cuts of both parts, the "horny versions," because the director's cuts are so damn horny. There's a scene towards the beginning of the movie where the village chief, Sindri tells the entire village to have sex because it's in that village's culture to have sex at the beginning of a season before a harvest to ensure that the seeds are fertile and the harvest is plentiful because they're a farming community, they produce grain 🌾. Kind of like how a lot of Native American tribes perform "rain dances 🌧️" to try to bring about more rain 🌧️, except hornier than that.
It's through that scene that we get the sex scene between Kora and Den because Hagen told her that Den left her a love letter 💌 or something and she decided to take Den up on his offer and have sex with him for that night. The very night that village has its annual sex night to ensure a fertile crop and plentiful harvest. It's the first sex scene in Part One, and the only one between two humans, whereas the second sex scene is between a human and an alien as I mentioned before. I'm not complaining or anything, it's just an observation. I'm just glad that we have a major sci-fi action blockbuster where the main protagonist is allowed to be intimate and have sex. Especially a female main protagonist ♀︎, we rarely see them get intimate in these kinds of movies. Only Zack Snyder and his talented crew can provide that to us.
So yes, the director's cuts are the superior version of these two movies (or rather both parts of the same movie since this is pretty much one big movie simply split into two parts). It really does give you the feeling of what it would be like to have an R rated Star Wars movie, something that hasn't happened and never will happen so long as it's owned by Disney. In fact, I don't even think we would've gotten a R rated Star Wars movie even when it was still owned by George Lucas. Another thing I should note about the director's cuts is that have different title. The PG-13 version of Part One is called A Child of Fire 🔥, whereas the director's cut is called Chalice of Blood 🩸. Same thing with Part Two, the PG-13 title was The Scargiver, while the director's cut was titled Curse of Forgiveness. The parts aren't even called parts, they're called chapters. So for Part One, it's Rebel Moon – Chapter One: Chalice of Blood 🩸, and for Part Two, it's Rebel Moon – Chapter Two: Curse of Forgiveness.
I don't know why the titles are different, maybe Zack Snyder thought that these titles were more reflective of the movie he wanted to make, or they were always meant to be the titles all along, but he decided to give the PG-13 versions different titles to distinguish them. I'm still probably going to call it The Scargiver in this review, that's probably what I'll still title it even if that's not the version I watched, but I don't know, I haven't decided. Depending on which title you see at the top of this review on my blog and on DeviantART, you'll know which one I picked.
If you do choose watch Rebel Moon, I recommend just watching the R rated director's cuts. Don't even bother with the PG-13 versions. They're not as good. They're shorter, they have scenes missing, there's a lot of context missing, and the violence and blood 🩸 are toned down, plus they don't have any boobies. You're wasting your time if watch the PG-13 versions. Again, I said this in my review for Part One, but I don't see the point of releasing a watered down, neutered PG-13 version of these two parts, when you're just going to release the longer and more hardcore R rated versions anyway. It's a waste of time. Why not just release the R rated versions from the beginning and not even bothering with doing PG-13 versions.
You know that this is going to be a Netflix exclusive, and it's only going to have a limited theatrical release at best, so why not just go all out and release the R rated versions of both parts? You did that for Army of the Dead 🎰🧟♂️, Zack Snyder's previous movie before Rebel Moon, why not do for Rebel Moon in the very beginning? I think people would've liked this movie (both parts) if these had been the versions that were initially released. I genuinely do not know whose decision it was to release PG-13 versions of both parts first, and then release R rated versions, if it was Zack Snyder himself or Netflix. But whoever it was, it was a stupid decision, and they should've just released the R rated versions from the start.
This is definitely a movie (both parts) that would have been approved by any of the major studios except Netflix. Hell, the only reason why this movie even exists at all is that Zack Snyder wanted to make a Star Wars movie, but Lucasfilm didn't approve of any of ideas for whatever reason, and just decided to make his own movie with his original ideas. The ones that Lucasfilm didn't like. Was it simply because of the violence, or the sex and nudity? Was it because of the generally darker tone and more adult themes? Was it because they just didn't like Zack Snyder's style and didn't think it would fit Star Wars? I don't know, but regardless of the reason why Lucasfilm rejected his ideas, we got Rebel Moon out of it, and because he was making it for Netflix, he was able to get as weird and crazy with it as he wanted. Include as much bloody and gory violence 🩸 as he wanted, include as much sex and nudity as he wanted, and include as much swear words as he wanted. There are straight up F bombs in this movie, both in Part One and Part Two.
Speaking of which, I should probably get into my actual thoughts on this movie. Well, one of the benefits of having waited so long to watch and review this movie is that I was able to see the general consensus amongst the critics and audiences, and the general discourse surrounding the movie when it was initially released. Like, the first part, Part Two received mostly negative reviews from the critics. The venom and malice seemed to really pronounced this time around as there just seems to be a lot of critics out there who are just sick of Zack Snyder's shit, they're just tired of him and his style and either want him to change or just go away and stop making movies. Both of which will never happen.
Snyder seems pretty set in his ways and will never change his style for anyone, especially not for a bunch of stuffy critics who never liked his stuff anyway. And he has no intention of ever quitting, and will likely keep making movies until he is way too old and physically and mentally unable to or until he dies, and that's still a long ways away. The guy ♂︎'s 58, and no where near close to the age where those sorts of things would be of any concern. I don't know what the audience reception was to this movie, but I do know that there were people who are fans of Snyder who didn't like Part One.
That's why I say that the movie was as close to being universally hated of any film in Snyder's career. I don't know if that's still the case with Part Two or either of the R rated director's cuts, but I imagine it is for a lot of people. And hey, if you're a Snyder fan and you didn't like this movie or the previous movie, then that's perfectly fine. It's a shame that you were disappointed by this movie despite your love for Snyder's other movies besides Rebel Moon, but that's just your opinion, you're entitled to it, and I won't try to change your mind.
For other people, I said this in my review for Part One, but this is a Zack Snyder movie, the guy ♂︎ has made 12 movies so far in his career, you should know by now whether you like his stuff or not. If you do like his stuff, then you'll probably like Rebel Moon (Parts One and Two), though as mentioned before, that isn't guaranteed as like Army of the Dead 🎰🧟♂️, there are some Snyder fans might be disappointed by this film and what it has to offer. As for people who hate Snyder's work and have always hated it, you're probably not going to like this movie. If you hate Zack Snyder's movies and everything he stands for or doesn't stand for, there's nothing in here that will change your mind and convert you into a Zack Snyder fan. It has the trappings of a Zack Snyder movie: slow motion, speed ramping, dark tones, extreme violence, and sex and nudity (though not all of his movies have sex and nudity, not even all of R rated films), as well as mixed messaging or even no messaging at all in the case of Army of the Dead 🎰🧟♂️.
Though, I would argue that both parts of Rebel Moon do have a much clearer message than some of Snyder's other movies, mainly that Nazis are bad, and fascism, militarism, and imperialism are bad. I mean, the bad guys in this movie (both parts) are pretty much Space Nazis, or Nazis in Space, as they look much more like Nazis than the Galactic Empire did in the Star Wars movies. The Imperium/the Motherworld is pretty much like if you mixed the German Empire (the Second Reich) together with the Third Reich, and then put them in space.
We constantly see them do horrible things, like they're constantly committing war crimes and genocide without a single thought or remorse. Legit, they do things in both parts of this movie (in the director's cuts) that even the Empire in Star Wars would think was excessive and taking it too far 😬. So, the movie knows what its message is, and is much more on message with its visuals than some of Snyder's previous movies like 300 and Sucker Punch. If you don't like any of that stuff I mentioned, if you don't like the way Zack Snyder and his crew do things, then you were probably not going to like this movie anyway, and you'd be best to avoid it.
But, I liked Part One. You go read my review of it, and it's pretty positive, it's probably one of the few positive reviews of that movie out there. And I do still stand by everything that I said in that review, and even more so now that I've seen the director's cut. Everything that could said in praise of Part One can easily be applied to Part Two, which is fitting because they are essentially one big movie split into two parts. The action is great, the alien and spaceship designs and concepts are cool, the world is really fascinating, and the characters are pretty cool, I do like most of the characters. The villains are absolutely evil bastards who have pretty much no redeeming qualities, so it's pretty satisfying when they're brutally killed, both in Part One and Part Two.
The slow motion and speed ramping that is common throughout Zack Snyder's movies didn't bother me nearly as much as it does other people. It is a bit excessive at times? Yes, but it wasn't so much that it irritated me or took me out of the movie. I mean, just be glad that none of the sex scenes in the director's cuts are in slow motion like the ones in Watchmen (2009). The performances are good too, there's not a single actor who falls flat and gives a bad performance. I do really like Sofia Boutella, and I think she works perfectly as the lead, and it's a shame that she probably won't get another lead role in another movies given the overwhelmingly negative reception to this movie.
Hollywood has a tendency to not give actors another chance if they've been in a movie that was received poorly and didn't make a lot of money 💵, and their careers suffer as a result, when it's hardly ever the actor's fault. They get blamed for things that are usually not in their control, and the things that they are in control of, they're just doing their jobs and doing the best job they can do given the material they're given. Usually this can be avoided if the actor was already a huge star before they were in the critically panned box office bomb 💣, but Sofia Boutella really isn't a huge star.
She's been more of a character actor, and character actors are not treated the same as those big stars who get the lead roles and are used as marketing tools and selling points for movies. So, the negative reception of Rebel Moon could easily hurt her career, and that's a shame because I think her performance in both parts is pretty good and the movie itself isn't anywhere near as bad as critics have made it out to be. In fact, in my estimation, the movie isn't bad at all, it's actually pretty good. The movie exists primarily is a spectacle, and it works in that department. Zack Snyder's visuals win the day, and I can say that because like with Army of the Dead 🎰🧟♂️, he did the cinematography himself. He's the director of photography for Part One and Part Two.
Now, Part One was the setup movie, where we're introduced to all the characters, the team is put together, and they return to Veldt to defend it from the Imperium/Motherworld. Whereas Part Two, is the pay off where we see the warriors that Kora and Gunnar assembled defend the village on Veldt, while also training the villagers themselves to defend themselves and fight against the Motherworld, or Imperium, whatever you want to call them. It's pretty much like A Bug's Life in that way, or I guess Seven Samurai since they're both retellings of Seven Samurai.
It's also like other two part movies where the first part is pretty much all story and character setup, and the second part is pretty much all action as everything that was setup in the first part is paid off. It's same as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it's the same as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, it's the same as The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, I assume it's the same as Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, it's the same as Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, and it's the same as The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Yes, I count Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame because despite them not being titled as though they are one big movie split into two parts, much like The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, they are functionally one movie split into two parts.
We do get more backstory for the other four warriors that Kora and Gunnar recruited which many people felt was sorely missing in Part One. A lot of people felt that the warriors lacked any depth and were cardboard cutouts, well this movie actually gives them the proper backstory and depth that was missing in Part One, and gives us more of a reason to care about them and root for them to survive. We even get backstory on the royal family, where we learn that the king wasn't that bad, and that he wanted to end the Motherworld's imperial expansion, draw down their military forces, and then abdicate to allow his daughter, Princess Issa to take the throne and lead the Realm (that's what they refer to the galaxy in this movie's universe) into a brighter, more peaceful age. Completely abandoning militarism and imperialism in favor or pacifism.
But, the evil general, Balisarius didn't want this, he didn't want the empire to end and the military to be reduced in size and strength. He wanted it to keep expanding, and the military to remain strong, subjugating and punishing (killing and torturing) anyone who resists or stands up to the Motherworld. Basically, he wanted to rule the Realm through fear and oppression, and with an absolute iron fist, where the military held all the power and influence. So, he decided to assassinate the entire royal family, preventing the king from abdicating and preventing Princess Issa from assuming the throne.
And then, after the deed was done, he pinned the whole thing on Arthelais, which lead to her desertion from the Imperium and to her becoming a fugitive until she crash landed on Veldt and started a new life in that village under a new name. Oh, and with the king dead, he crowned himself the de facto ruler of the Motherworld, the Regent, looking like a Roman emperor and everything. So, this all means that Balisarius is the real villain here, the real big bad. He's pretty much the Emperor Palpatine of this movie, while Admiral Noble is the Darth Vader of this movie, or rather he's like if you took Darth Vader and Admiral Thrawn and merged them together into one character. That final scene in Part One pretty much that obvious what their dynamic was supposed to be.
While I do like the movie as I stated before, there are some things that did bother me a bit. I didn't like how little James was in the movie. He was in so little of Part One, and while he does have more screen time in the director's cut, he still doesn't do anything except stand around or sit down or crouch down, I was hope they would actually give more to do in Part Two. And while they do technically, he still didn't do anything until the middle and the end. I mean, sure, he took out those Hawkshaws beforehand and stopped them from transmitting anymore intel to the enemy, but he already saw them transmitting and waited until the last minute to actually do anything it. If he acted sooner, and killed the Hawkshaws as soon as he saw them transmitting towards the beginning of the movie, the Imperium would not have known as much about the heroes' plan as they did.
And like I said before, he doesn't participate in the majority of the final battle and waits until the last minute to finally join the fight, and it's barely of any consequence. They still lost hundreds or thousands of villagers in the battle. Had James been apart of the battle from the beginning perhaps they won't have taken as many losses and perhaps the battle would not have been as difficult. They could've done so much more with this character than they did, but they didn't. He comes across as wasted potential. Hopefully, they'll do more with him in the third part if there ever is a third part, but more on that later.
It did bother me that they brought Admiral Noble back. It didn't make sense to me why the Imperium, with all the resources and men at its disposal, would chose to resurrect this one admiral to go wipe out some farming village on some moon out in the middle of nowhere, in a backwater part of the galaxy that is of little use to the Motherworld. Something that Imperium themselves acknowledge is pretty superfluous and insignificant in the long run. Why couldn't they have just hired someone else to do the job, like Noble's second-in-command, Cassius? The Motherworld doesn't seem one to reward failure, and by all accounts Noble failed in his one mission. Why give him a second chance? What's so special about Noble that they needed him specifically to this job and no one else? Is he really that irreplaceable or indispensable? It doesn't seem like it. There's nothing about Noble in particular that makes it seem like he's an indispensable admiral that the Imperium couldn't do without.
He's not a particularly brilliant tactician or anything, and because of his fragile mental state after being revived, he ends up being more of a liability than an asset. The Imperium didn't just lose and the King's Gaze wasn't just destroyed because of Kora and Titus's tactical and strategic brilliance, but because of Noble's poor decision making which was largely caused by his descent into madness. Because they revived him, and let him out too early, he went completely insane, putting the King's Gaze and everyone on board at risk. He straight up murders Cassius and then let's everyone else die on the bridge when Kora shot at it with the ship's huge laser gun that look like the guns on a battleship from World War I and World War II.
Speaking of which, he also lets his pride and his personal ambitions get in the way and dictate every decision he makes, every action he takes. He's pretty much operating purely on vengeance, as he wants to kill Kora because she killed him, and he also wants to become a Senator. Yes, the Motherworld has a Senate, just like the Republic and the Empire did in Star Wars. You know, until Palpatine dissolved the Senate and fully consolidated power for himself, turning the Empire into an absolute monarchy, during the events of A New Hope. So, they would've been better if they just left him dead, and replaced him with someone who was of more sound mind and wasn't blinded by vengeance and ambition.
The only reason that I can think of in-universe why they brought him back was that his men were loyal to him, and they didn't want to see him go, especially go out the way he did, and only wanted to be lead by him and him alone, but it's a poor excuse especially when you consider that the decision to revive Noble came from the top down. Balisarius was the one who ordered Noble's resurrection and then commanded him to go after Kora and bring her back to him alive. Which, Noble had very little intention of doing as he had a personal vendetta against her, and wanted to see her dead. So again, if Balisarius really wanted Kora to be captured and be brought back alive, then he shouldn't have brought back someone who has a personal stake in this and hates her so much that he literally wants to kill her and display her corpse in the Senate chamber.
As for why the filmmakers decided to bring him back for Part Two, the only reason that I could come up is that Zack Snyder and the other writers couldn't come up with another cool and imposing bad guy who the audience would love to hate, so they just decided to use the same bad guy from the first part in the second part. I mean, after all, they are supposed to be one movie, and the Matrix sequels did it with Agent Smith, so why not do it with Noble, a crazy and depraved psychopath that you just instantly hate and want to see get killed? All well, at least he dies in a way at the end of this movie that he can be brought back in a third part if they ever do one.
It also bothered me that Nemesis was the first of the six warriors to die. In fact, she and Gunnar are only two members of the main team that actually die in the final battle, everyone else lives. And she doesn't even last that long, like she puts up a decent fight at first against these Imperium soldiers, but it is eventually killed by one with a similar heated glowing blade thing that she has (only his is blue and is much longer and thinner) after she gets distracted fighting a different guy. She was one of the cooler characters in the movie, and one of the more intriguing characters in the movie. I wish she had survived, or at least lasted way longer.
But other than these issues, I still like the movie, and I think it's as good, if not better than Part One and the two parts do come together as one cohesive whole. After seeing both parts, do I think that this really needed to be a two-part movie? Not really. This could've easily been one movie not split into two parts, and been way shorter, like around 2 hours or under 2 hours at the least. But given the way the story was actually told, and given that each part runs over 2 hours long (3 hours for the director's cut of Part One), I would say yeah, it did have to be in two parts. What can I say? Zack Snyder likes to get overly long-winded and overindulgent with these sorts of things. When he's let off the leash and has no guardrails, he'll go as long as he wants, including 4 hours as was the case with his version of Justice League. But, usually only after he releases a shorter version, sometimes rated PG-13 instead of R, which is more his wheelhouse.
Now that I've discussed my feelings on the movie, I should probably address the one question people had after watching this movie: is there going to be a Part Three? Because while the movie does end with the heroes succeeding in the end, defeating the Imperium, killing Noble, and destroying the King's Gaze, it does have some rather egregious sequel bait where General Titus tells Kora that he not only knew all along that she was Arthelais, but also that Princess Issa is not actually dead and maybe still be alive somewhere, and then they and the other two surviving warriors and the robot decide to head off into the stars to find her. And also, the Motherworld is still out there, the Imperium is still around, and Balisarius is still alive and kicking, ruling the Motherworld as a false king. So, that needs to be resolved.
But, given the negative reception to both parts, I don't even know if there will ever be a Part Three. But then again, Army of the Dead 🎰🧟♂️ got bad reviews too, and yet, Snyder is still proceeding with the sequel, so I don't know. It could still happen. We just don't know yet. If not a movie though, they could continue and conclude the story in either a TV series, a video game, or a graphic novel. Zack Snyder spent a large chunk of his career directing comic book movies, so it would be fitting if one of his original movies got turned into a comic book. Regardless, I would mind seeing the story be continued and concluded. I like the story, the characters, and the world enough to want to see more of it. Just so long as it's on Zack Snyder's terms.
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