Rebel Moon – Part One: Director’s Cut

The biggest change to the director’s cut of Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon – Part One (this time subtitled Chalice of Blood) comes at the start. Instead of an expository voice-over setting the scene before viewers meet main character Kora (Sofia Boutella), the film now opens with an extended sequence that shows the ruthless antagonist (Ed Skrein) lay siege to a settlement in his search for the leaders of a rebellion. With a lot more blood and nudity, there’s a brutality to the action which gives the violence some extra bite. Alongside the grittiness that raises the flick’s certification to an 18, there’s some extra characterisation that shows Skrein’s character take a ritualistic pleasure in collecting the teeth of his victims.

All of this is a bold change of pace from the original cut. However, as the plot sets into the familiar motions of Kora searching for a band of warriors to defend her home from the merciless empire, it’s evident that this version of Snyder’s Seven Samurai in space still suffers from the same problems as the shorter version.

Despite having over an hour of extra footage, what’s been labelled as the filmmaker’s “true vision” still struggles to establish its main cast of characters. Everything that needs to be known about them is still condensed into throwaway lines of dialogue that proceed a flashy action scene that shows that they can fight before they’re relegated to the sidelines while the next hero is introduced. This pattern repeats through most of the runtime, and with no camaraderie present between the ensemble of fighters, it’s still difficult to become invested in anything that’s going on.

Another new addition to this cut is a subplot depicting how a robot soldier transformed from an obedient worker at the start of the movie to the antler-wearing warrior at the end. While these scenes do provide some extra context to what’s happening back at home while Kora is on her adventure, the robot’s monologues about the fabled princess who the title takes its name from still don’t add much of use to the main plot. If anything, they only slow down the action.

Although the gore and brutality frame Rebel Moon in a more mature light, the longer runtime is still unable to fix the glaring flaws that plagued the original version of this film.

Andrew Murray

Rebel Moon – Part One: Director’s Cut is released on Netflix on 2^nd August 2024.

Watch the trailer for Rebel Moon – Part One: Director’s Cut here: