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I Survived a Marathon of Zack Snyder’s Unrated ‘Rebel Moon’ — But Still Can’t Tell You Why It Exists
I’ve never seen a line for the men’s room at the American Cinématheque as long as the one that confronted me at intermission of the marathon screening of Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon” this weekend. (Keep in mind, by that point, the crowd had been holding its collective bladder for three and a half hours, with […]
A tracking shot depicts one toga-clad Toan kneeling in the foreground with a gun to the back of his head, the first example of what will soon become this film’s “mind-blowing” signature: a lava-hot laser beam hits someone’s skull, popping his nob like a thin-skinned tomato, and splattering everything (including the lens) with CG marinara. As if that wasn’t already a touch too much, one of Atticus’ “Scribes” (the crimson-cloaked priests with broad, discus-shaped hats who look suspiciously like Darth Vader’s Red Guards) extracts a molar from the dead man’s mouth and inserts it into a framed photo of the Princess Issa (the slain savior who now motivates the Motherland’s unholy war). Judging by the long, sycophantic Q&A (with the film’s “speculative civilization” advisor Adam Forman) that followed the two-part screening, Snyder has put enormous thought into the mythology and lore that underpins “Rebel Moon.” But that made it all the more exasperating to hear him describe ideas that don’t come through, despite the maximalist project’s miniseries-length running time.
Or read this on Variety