The highly anticipated “Rebel Moon Part 2” directed by Zack Snyder has crash-landed its debut week with an abysmal 13% Rotten Tomatoes score. This marks an all-time low for Snyder’s films, even below the disappointing 22% his divisive “Sucker Punch” received in 2011.
Early reviews indicate “Rebel Moon Part 2” somehow manages to be even worse than the panned Part 1, which sits at just 21% on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences seem to agree, with the audience score for Part 2 currently at 47%, 10 percentage points below Part 1’s 57%.
It’s truly mind-boggling how Zack Snyder and his team failed to course-correct after the negative reception to Part 1. Did they really think doubling down on the same flawed formula would yield better results? Or do they simply not care what audiences and critics think? Given the astronomically high budget for “Rebel Moon”, one would expect some quality control from Netflix executives as well. Instead, it appears they greenlit an interstellar disaster.
Critics have not held back in tearing apart “Rebel Moon Part 2”, highlighting issues that plagued the first film and then some. Deadline calls it a “descent further into a black hole of nothingness” while Inverse points to the sequel being “frequently off-kilter and sluggish.” Mashable argues that in so slavishly following the Star Wars template, Rebel Moon still “cannot shine.” The Daily Beast aptly sums up the film as simply “roaring and rampaging” with little dramatic substance.
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Harsh words indeed for Zack Snyder’s sci-fi/fantasy passion project. It seems his signature style of slow-motion action and striking visuals could not save “Rebel Moon” from feeling hollow and derivative. After critical and commercial hits early in his career like “300” and “Watchmen”, Snyder has struggled in recent years to match that success. From the abysmal response to his DC films like “Batman v Superman” and “Justice League”, to now the Rebel Moon series bombing on an epic scale, Snyder’s directorial choices continue to miss the mark.
While there will always be a vocal minority of hardcore Zack Snyder fans who appreciate his “artistic” vision, “Rebel Moon Part 2” makes clear that vision does not resonate with general audiences. A 13% on Rotten Tomatoes places it among the worst-reviewed blockbusters in years. One might have hoped Snyder would learn something from past misfires and course correct. Instead, he stubbornly made many of the same mistakes, delivering yet another disjointed spectacle over substance dud.
Perhaps there is a superior version of “Rebel Moon” that will eventually see the light of day, but the versions currently available have rightfully been eviscerated by critics and rejected by most moviegoers. For Zack Snyder, these new additions to his filmography are black holes that offer depressingly little for fans to enjoy.
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