I feel when talking about Zack Snyder, it’s best to lay the cards on the table from the get-go. I’m indifferent to his work overall, some of his films I quite enjoy, such as 300 and his cut of Justice League, others I’m left wanting on, such as Man of Steel and Army of the Dead, nevermind Sucker Punch. So I went into Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire not as a fan and with no prior bias or agenda. So with that in mind, I found Snyder’s latest film to be not bad. Not amazing, but not Sucker Punch bad.

Rebel Moon started as Snyder’s pitch to Lucasfilm for the next Star Wars film in 2012, right before the Disney acquisition. Naturally, when that sale went through, the studio opted not to follow through with Snyder’s project. But the story was still there and over the years, Snyder would remove the Star Wars angle from his script and work on something within his own unique universe.

Well, maybe not that unique. Which is one of the problems of Rebel Moon. It’s very derivative of other works, not just Star Wars. In this galaxy far, far away, we find Kora (Sophia Boutella), a villager of a backwater farming community. They get visited by the Imperium of the Motherworld, led by Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein), who demand grain so they can keep their conquest going and stop the rebellion that’s springing up in the more backwater parts of the galaxy. Kora is, of course, a deserter from the Imperium and knows a thing or two about their methods and ideologies. With the threat of the return of the Motherworld in ten weeks for the grain, Kora races across the galaxy with fellow farmer Gunnar (Michiel Hussain) to find warriors to help defend the village.

In that synopsis alone you’ll recognize the Star Wars influences of a rebellion rising up to fight the sinister Empire. But if you’re a fan of Star Wars and cinema, you’ll for sure see the parallel to Akira Kurasawa’s iconic Seven Samurai, which this film borrows from arguably even more than George Lucas’ work. In terms of the visuals and the film’s own mythology, Rebel Moon also borrows heavily from Roman history and Warhammer 40,000 and there’s inspiration from other fantastic and sci-fi projects, from The Matrix to Harry Potter. But Rebel Moon doesn’t hit the same highs as those movies, making it feel like a big-budget fan project.

The film does have a strong opening act, keeping it focused on the villagers and the Imperium. Ed Skrein in particular is very compelling, evoking Christoph Waltz from Inglorious Basterds but with his own spin. Definitely the standout of the film in terms of acting; his character is just “bad space fascist” with no other layers. Anthony Hopkins is also intriguing as Jimmy, a former soldier droid turned protocol droid, but he has limited screen time, with the payoff to his character arc likely coming in Part Two: The Scargiver (first look at that movie after this one in the Netflix app). Other members of the cast include Djimon Hounsou, Ray Fisher, Charlie Hunam (doing his best attempt Northern Ireland accent for whatever reason), Donna Bae, Staz Nair (Mr. allergic to shirts) and Cary Elwes, among others.

But the film does start to lose itself in the second act when we venture out of the village in search of other warriors. Rebel Moon starts bouncing around from location to location rather quickly, recruiting warriors whose names I couldn’t even tell you, let alone fully dive into their backstories. We meet them, get a quick action scene and are whisked away to the next recruit. The movie then starts to drag a bit, suffering from feeling stuck on a wheel and not caring about the side characters at all. I think Snyder should’ve kept the recruits at a smaller number, as there’s just too many characters to keep track of and not enough time at two hours and fifteen minutes with credits. There’s also a ton of clunky exposition and it makes the dialogue rough to listen to.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Apart from the performances I’ve already highlighted, Snyder is known for his visual style and it’s certainly cranking out at maximum capacity here. Just like Army of the Dead, Snyder (who wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay) also serves as cinematographer and his work seems better in this one, with less reliance on the intense shallow depth of field that was rampant in his zombie epic. Per usual, there’s tons of slo-mo too and it is a bit self-indulgent. I don’t need to see rice fall in slow motion. While some of the CG is hit or miss, the overall aesthetic and design of the film are really awesome, especially the costumes. The motion capture for Jimmy is also really impressive and worth the praise and the general worldbuilding is engaging and intriguing.

This is a PG-13, two-hour cut of the first movie. But Snyder has gone on record to say that a three-hour, R-rated director’s cut is coming as well. While I don’t understand the point of releasing two cuts on a streaming service, where the box office isn’t an issue, I will say that I am at least intrigued by the possibility of the extended cut. It could solve a lot of the problems this movie has with pacing and character development (like his own Batman V Superman cut), unlike the prospect of the Napolon director’s cut, which thanks to a shaky lead performance from Joaquin Phoenix, likely won’t be saved with more screentime. As such, Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire is certainly not a trainwreck, but it’s held back by a lack of originality, pacing, a poor script and substance, which brings it from a potentially engaging movie to just being kind of “whatever”.

Sidenote, but one has to wonder if Finn from The Force Awakens, a deserting stormtrooper, wasn’t in some part influenced by Snyder’s script of having a turncoat become a rebel. Food for thought.