It hasn’t been a great year for blockbuster movies, or for beloved action franchises, but along comes director Zack Snyder, with his big-budget space-opera based on a rejected Star Wars movie idea, and I didn’t really know what to expect. First off, I am an established fan of Snyder’s, having loved 300, liked Watchmen, Sucker Punch, Legends of the Guardians, and not hated his DCEU movies. I am familiar with Snyder’s M.O., which is to give us nice-looking, heroic visuals with a bit too much gratuitous slow-mo, and generally a story that is more style/mood over character/substance.

Nevertheless, I was primed for a new franchise, a new universe to explore on screen. Since this movie was originally intended to be a Star Wars franchise movie, though, I should have expected that it wasn’t going to be the most original thing going. In fact, it was derivative of a number of other sci-fi stories, but not really too much Star Wars — yet; it’s only the first part. We start out on the titular moon (though it’s not too rebellious yet) and Sofia Boutella’s character Kora is plowing a field with the help of a giant horse-creature. She seems to be part of a small farming community, but it’s clear from her accent and some of the dialogue that she’s not been there long. We quickly meet a local farmer Gunnar (played by Game of Thrones‘ Michiel Huisman) and the community leader (played by Corey Stoll), and things get ominous when a huge space ship arrives. Unfortunately, this moon and community is under the jackboots of a galactic empire, and these space-Nazis (they even kind of dress like Nazis) arrive demanding that the community supply them with grain (more than they can provide). Given the “Rebel” part of the title, one might easily predict that this is not going to end with some simple agricultural exchange, but eventually, Kora and Gunnar leave the planet to round up a rag-tag fellowship (I mean “band”) of individuals to start an uprising against this oppressive empire (called the “Motherworld”).

I definitely didn’t hate the basic plot of this movie. It’s not very original, but it’s kind of fun to go looking for an assortment of fallen warriors and secret fighters. The Star Wars of it happens when the group go to a cantina on some world, where the usual assortment of miscreants have various bizarre alien looks to them (though the Lucasfilm bars have a lot more off-world ethnic diversity). There they meet the Han Solo stand-in, Kai, played by Charlie Hunnam, who also coincidentally happens to have a ship for their cause. They also meet up with Djimon Hounsou (who apparently changed movies and characters, but still works in a Gladiator arena), Doona Bae (as a non-blue-eyed swordswoman — she’s got a couple of fire sabres. Can I call them “sabres”?). There’s also a strange scene where they are recruiting some random young man (named Tarak) held prisoner by an oafish farmer, who ends up taming a griffon (no, you did not read that wrong) in order to gain his freedom. It feels totally random, but it looks stunning — especially the slow-mo money shot of Tarak leaping off a cliff onto the griffon’s back.

We later learn that these characters all have long, grudge-filled histories with the Motherworld, and that’s why it’s so easy to convince them to take up Kora and Gunnar’s cause. There seems like there’s a bunch of world-building that is overlooked and just quickly slipped in (you can only fit so much story into a limited runtime — especially when you include so much slow-mo). Though none of their stories seem super fresh, I think some more time to expand the backstories might have helped. As it is, each character is given basically an introductory action scene, sprinkled with something a little-bit sci-fi, and then we’re off to the next recruit. The story is definitely B-grade science fiction, pulling together fairly typical elements. Unfortunately the acting performances were not too much help either. Everyone seems reasonably serviceable in their parts, but there weren’t really any standouts (not even the villain, played by Ed Skrein), except for the one character played/voiced by Anthony Hopkins: Jimmy the robot. It has sadly very little screen time in this first movie but it’s got probably the most interesting character in the movie. It’s one of a squad of elite military robots (Can I say “droid”?) who all stopped fighting and gave up their directives once the king they served was killed. While there are a growing number of these gentle, noble, formerly-killer robots in sci-fi, this one seems to have a bit more depth (and Hopkins voice acting didn’t hurt one bit).

Despite a story/script that is pretty weak, with many logical inconsistencies (Why would a huge military, with giant, space-folding starships need a bunch of farmers to grow their grain?) I did enjoy this movie for its visuals and action sequences. It is definitely style over substance, but it’s a slick style. I don’t think it would have done well as a Star Wars movie. Nevertheless, I actually enjoyed it more than Ahsoka, so you never know. (3.5 out of 5)