Rebel Moon - Chapter One: Chalice of Blood - Director's Cut Movie Review (2024)

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire becomes Rebel Moon – Chapter One: Chalice of Blood, a hard-R-rated 3.5 hour sex-and-violence Director's Cut that, unsurprisingly, should have been released in the first place.

If you want coverage of the "story" of Rebel Moon Part One, Chapter One, whatever, you should take a quick look at the review (below) we did when it was first released. This review will entirely cover the director's cut in comparison to that, and what you'll get out of a watch/rewatch.

Well everything we suspected was basically true. Undoubtedly the Director’s Cut of Rebel Moon is a better version. The structure is better, establishing, through a very violent extended battle sequence prologue, the villains of the piece much more satisfactorily, with a setpiece that absolutely shouldn’t have been ripped from the first version. Added sex and nudity soon showcase Sofia Boutella’s sacrifice for the cause (a director’s very lingering eye), and all of the action sequences have been upgraded, to such an extent that some of them (where Boutella first protects the villager from attempted gang rape and showcases her skills) look entirely different.

This is not just a case of added CG blood, the scenes feel palpably different, and eminently as they should have done originally, as if it’s less about things being added, and more about how they were taken away in the first place (which is essentially what happened). Two brief brain bashes away from its original NC-17 rating, this definitely deserves a hard-R.

Of course, for all the positivity anyone can possibly muster, the biggest trio of near insurmountable fundamental issues likely cripple the viewing.

Firstly, it’s not enough to say that this should have been the original released cut. It’s more that the very release of a botched, shorter, inferior, less mature, less well structured, tamer cut immediately makes watching a longer version worse than it would have been had you come to it in the first place. Watching the new stuff is fine, and the added sex and violence work, but sitting through some of the same scenes - even if many have been added too - can become an arduous task, particularly with some of the acting on display, and some of the characters. Bird rider is still a bare-chested idiot, and a superior cut would have edited him out completely, not just dished out a more bloody intro to him. Sofia Boutella is served better, even that gratuitous sex scene shows hints of conflict in the character, and her fight sequences now display a sense of great skill and strength but also imperfection - she has to fight hard to win, something not as evident in the first cut. BUT she’s still not commanding enough for the lead, her backstory still too muddied, however improved it all is here. There’s more Hopkins, more Hounsou, both very welcome, and, as stated, Skrein’s uber-oberführer is much better introduced, which immediately helps give him a better threat presence. Yet for every positive beat you’re confronted by a repeat of something you’ve seen before and didn’t like the first time, which kills the pacing and makes the 3.5 hour runtime an impossible ask.

even the marketing posters can't fathom the name changes

Which brings us to secondly. Secondly, it’s too damn long. This is getting absurd. 3.5 hours for Chapter One, 3 hours for Chapter 2, the entire saga (which Snyder has teased as being possible SIX entries) is going to rack in, at least in a “Director’s Cut” form, at around 20 hours. TWENTY HOURS. There’s epic, and then there’s silly. This is Seven Samurai reimagined in space, Corman did it in 2 hours. Sure, you can make something ostensibly epic, with lots of world building and expanded ideas, but don’t pitch it at 20 hours. That’s taking the piss, and then some. It’s one story, Zack. If it takes 3.5 hours to introduce your characters, you’re doing something fundamentally wrong.

And thirdly, the central issues with the original cut of Rebel Moon Part One were not ones that could be entirely solved by a longer, more violent, version. What might have helped is if this was a Justice League situation. If the original version was an entirely different beast, which was recut, reedited, and fashioned into something like Zack Snyder’s Justice League. We’re not dealing with that here. Snyder directed both versions, he just savaged his 3.5 hour one to appease his deal with Netflix, and then popped his original vision up now. But that original vision is still, fundamentally, the same. Yes, it is better. Yes, if you came to it first, without having seen the PG-13 version, you will - if you have the staying power - get a better feel for what the director really wanted you to see first time around (the opening scene alone sets a much better tone). And you may even go wild and sling it a delirious 7/10. But it’s still got all the same key issues with grain wars, nonsense fossil-fuelled-intergalactic-ships, randomly powered bird men, and characters you don’t really care about - all of which ultimately still undermine its attempts to tell some grand tale of galactic uprising.

Ultimately watching the Director’s Cut, Rebel Moon: Chapter One - Chalice of Blood (who the hell thought it was a genius move to rename the movie’s subtitle? Hell even the marketing posters can't fathom the name changes!), after having already seen the first two PG-13 versions is an indisputable chore. Knowing you've got another 3 hours to go for the Director's Cut of Chapter Two may even be a case for the Samaritans. "It's a better movie" is really a pyrrhic damning-it-with-faint-praise victory when your eyes are bleeding and your head hurts.

It’s a rough ride, frequently forcing you to painfully resist fast forwarding the stuff you’ve already seen and know full well is crap, just because you're worried you'll miss an extra moment, or making you wish to take a damn break or ten (how about this, Zack, if your story is 20 hours long there's this little thing that's been invented called A TV SERIES). Superior or not, your feelings towards it are going to be almost impossible to judge after, by this stage, having sat through eight hours of this universe and not really feeling any further on than the first act in an interminable story. And knowing there's another 3 hours of Rebel Moon Chapter 2 that just dropped at the same time? Kill. Me. Now.

Rebel Moon - Chapter One: Chalice of Blood - the Director's Cut of Rebel Moon - Part One: Child of Fire, lands on Netflix in 4K Ultra HD Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos on the fateful Judgment Day of Friday 2nd August 2024 for those brave enough to give their lives for the cause.

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