**Rebel Moon is a flawed space epic that can’t compete with Star Wars or Dune but offers some fun for genre fans that don’t take it too seriously.** Rebel Moon adds the small, growing resistance struggling against a galactic tyrannical empire of Star Wars to the small village searching for a band of noble warriors to save them of Seven Samurai (or the Magnificent Seven or The Three Amigos), but falls short of capturing the greatness of its inspirations. However, while Rebel Moon Part One might be self-aggrandizing and annoyingly predictable, it’s still a fun movie. Director Zack Snyder skillfully constructs a visually stunning universe, filled with vibrant colors and innovative creature effects. Although the characters lack substantial backstories, they still manage to captivate the audience's curiosity. Snyder also cleverly includes intriguing hints that would undoubtedly entice viewers to return for a potential sequel. Despite grappling with shallow writing and occasional subpar CGI, Rebel Moon successfully held my interest, kept me entertained, and left me willing to give Part Two a chance.

Anyone remember "Battle Beyond the Stars" (1980)? Well this is a sort of hybrid of that and the "Magnificent Seven" that is quite impressive to look at, but that's about the height of it. A political assassinations has destabilised the kingdom and so "General Noble" (Ed Skrein) is off in his Dreadnought to terrorise the inter-planetary population. He arrives on a peaceful agrarian planet, kills the town father and declares that he'll be back in ten weeks to collect their harvest of grain. Panic sets in, especially when the guards he leaves behind try to force themselves on a villager and they encounter the wrath of "Kora" (Sofia Boutella). She's pretty nimble with her weaponry (so we just know there's a story here somewhere) and also manages to convince the town wimp "Gunnar" (Michael Huisman) that they must set off to recruit some help they can use to thwart the destruction of their livelihoods by "Noble". What we have now are a series predicable, set-piece, escapades as gradually they assemble a disparate band of rogues and criminals who might just want to take on the general in an hopelessly one-sided contest. You might detect the voice of Sir Anthony Hopkins ("Jimmy") and Charlie Hunnam sports a variable Irish accent as the famed "Kai" as this follows extremely well trammelled lines of adventure mixed with romance, political intrigue and some whizzo special effects. The denouement is straight out of "Attack of the Clones" (2002) and sets us up for a second instalment that you could probably just about map out now. I like the genre and I didn't hate the film, but it's disappointingly derivative and - well, you've just seen it all before.

<em>'Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire'</em> is an enjoyable ride! I will say that I wasn't ever totally engrossed into the story, though at every moment I was still very interested in what I was watching unfold - and for a movie that has a run time of around 134 minutes, that's a big plus. I particularly liked the world building, as well as the special effects. Sofia Boutella is a great choice to lead the ensemble, her performance is one that I thoroughly enjoyed throughout. Ed Skrein is solid in a, shock horror, antagonistic role (does that geezer ever play a good guy?), I've found him quite meh in other movies but here he is very much a positive. None of the others onscreen stand out on their onesies, though as an collective they are a fairly strong cast. I genuinely had a good time with this, can't ask for more than that. I'm fairly lukewarm on Zack Snyder movies, this is the seventh of his work that I've watched and <em>'Man of Steel'</em> and this are the only ones that I'd actually class as exceptional. Unlike many others, it appears, I look forward to checking out the sequel.

What a great movie. I never like Star Wars or Galaxy wars or whatever movies and found them boring, but this one is really good. Interesting story, great actors, no propaganda. Giving it solid 9/10.