Cat Person opens with the following quote from author Margaret Atwood: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” There could not be a better summary of the themes explored in the film, and the quote comes to mind often while watching it. Could men really be that insecure and could women truly find them that terrifying?

Cat Person answers both questions with a resounding and definitive “yes.” Men really can be so insecure that they exhibit behavior that terrifies women, and women’s reaction to men’s insecurity can be confusing and humiliating for men to experience. It’s a vicious circle without an easy solution that has existed since the beginning of humanity, and it doesn’t appear that it will be resolved anytime soon. The best we can do is acknowledge it and try to understand it, which is exactly what Cat Person attempts to do and succeeds at marvelously.

A college sophomore (Emilia Jones) develops a crush on an older man (Nicholas Braun) who frequents the movie theater at which she works. They begin an innocent flirtation that becomes constant texting, which eventually evolves into dating. The relationship becomes increasingly awkward the closer the two become, and the stark differences in their personalities and ages become impossible to ignore. She soon begins to suspect that he might be dangerous, and is unable to tell if it’s just her imagination responding to a lifetime of fears that result from being a woman.

Cat Person gets inside the head of its female protagonist and tells the story from her point of view. Jones’ excitement is contagious when the film’s core relationship is in its honeymoon phase, and her hesitation and growing discomfort are clearly communicated as it progresses. We see her hopes and desires at first, making it quite clear why she is drawn to Braun and what she hopes to get out of knowing him. We also see her mind racing through multiple terrifying scenarios in moments of uncertainty and potential danger, always keeping the audience as on edge as she is while she tries to figure out who the man that she is attracted to actually is.

One of the reasons Cat Person works as well as it does is because it refuses to create black-and-white characters who are only one thing. Jones is never a complete victim, and Braun is never a complete villain. They are simply two confused people trying to find love while dealing with their fears, faults, and insecurities. The extent to which they both go to feel happy and/or safe may hurt and/or alarm one another, but their actions are always understandable—if not entirely sympathetic—on a basic human level.

Jones and Braun are both excellent in their roles, creating believably relatable characters who share a highly naturalistic chemistry. You never catch either one of them acting, as they both inhabit their roles thoroughly and with the appearance of ease. Jones’ naïve-yet-intelligent college girl goes through a plethora of conflicting states of being—lust, terror, happiness, sadness, excitement, disinterest, curiosity, confidence, shame—and is convincing with every one of them. Braun takes great care in consistently making his character’s intentions ambiguous throughout the film. The results are admirably and complexly layered–no matter how innocent or dangerous he may appear to be at select moments.

Cat Person was directed by Susanna Fogel with a screenplay written by Michelle Ashford that was based on the short story by Kristen Roupenian. Ashford and Roupenian’s writing/themes are carefully handled and successfully relayed by Fogel, who sturdily and maturely constructs the film without drawing attention to herself. The writing and the performances are able to be at the forefront without any directorial vanity interfering. The subtle filmmaking helps to tell the story as tightly, clearly, and effectively as possible.

Cat Person is a film told from a much-needed and legitimate female perspective. Speaking as a man, it was an enlightening experience that helped me to somewhat make sense of years of female behavior that, admittedly, had previously befuddled me. Like any man, I’ll never be an expert on or come close to knowing everything there is to know about women. However, movies like this one are, at the very least, a step in the right direction towards trying to understand a reality outside of my own.

GRADE: A

A group of young men (Zac Efron, Andrew Santino, Jermaine Fowler) who have been friends since childhood have been getting away with mischief for years by blaming the trouble they cause/responsibilities they shirk on a fictional best friend they invented named Ricky Stanicky. When their loved ones eventually insist on meeting the mysterious friend behind all the years of wild stories, the group of men is forced to hire a down-on-his-luck actor (John Cena) to fill the role at a gathering. Hijinks, almost needless to say, most definitely ensue.

Ricky Stanicky is a charmingly feel-good, highly amusing, moderately edgy, and harmlessly filthy comedy that recalls the earlier films of its director and co-writer, Peter Farrelly. Though it’s not as outstanding as his Oscar-winning Green Book or as hilarious as the best works he co-directed and co-wrote with his brother, Bobby (Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, There’s Something About Mary), it still has an overall uniquely humorous and warmly affable quality that only a Farrelly Brother could create. For a few reasons, it’s not a great movie, but, for a few others, it’s one that doesn’t take much effort to enjoy.

Ricky Stanicky’s primary fault is its pacing. It takes too long to get going in its first act, then takes too long to wrap up in its last. During the first twenty minutes or so, I was worried the film was going to be as unengrossing and painfully unfunny as some of The Farrelly Brothers’ latter films (Stuck on You, The Heartbreak Kid, Dumb and Dumber To). During the last twenty minutes or so, the film runs the risk of overstaying its welcome and harming the eventual good quality that preceded it. Miraculously, however, the film always manages to (eventually) recover from its sometimes-haphazard pacing and get on track to tell what is primarily a delightful story.

While the individual actors all display dedication and talent, Efron, Santino, and Fowler fail to achieve a particularly vivacious or effortless chemistry with one another. Their interactions don’t suggest long-lasting familiarity or affection, but rather strangers who have just met at a bar and moderately hit it off. While the bond between the friends is clear because it is dictated from the get-go, it never manages to be entirely believable or felt on an emotional level.

The average chemistry between the actors portraying the trio of friends doesn’t help the fact their characters’ ongoing deception makes them somewhat unlikable for a large portion of the film. This is eventually somewhat rectified when Efron’s character’s damaged past is explored along with the much-needed questioning of his morality. However, it simply takes too long to get there before damage to the character’s relatability is already done. From a writing standpoint, the three friends are eventually well-defined, but if their characters had been shaded in a little more towards the beginning, it probably would have been a bit easier to sympathize with, enjoy, and appreciate them.

Ricky Stanicky’s true standout and highlight, and the reason for its overall success is John Cena. The film’s biggest laughs (of which there are several) all come from him and his portrayal of a struggling actor filling in the role of a fictional legend. His comic timing is impeccable, his personality is lovable, his delivery has a hilariously self-important intensity, and his reactions to even the wildest of scenarios are endlessly and impressively straight-faced. Cena brings out the best in everyone—his fellow actors, the filmmakers– in every scene in which he appears. He is a rare performer who fascinatingly exudes uniquely conflicting qualities such as masculinity, fragility, world-weariness, innocence, silliness, seriousness, approachability, rage, extreme ego, and charming self-effacement. He is a true and natural movie star in every sense of the term.

Ricky Stanicky has its flaws, but it manages to rise above them for the most part. If it had been a bit shorter and tighter, a tad more developed, and a little better structured, it might have been another Peter Farrelly classic. As it stands, however, it will just have to settle on being a pretty solid movie with a number of memorably hilarious and heartfelt moments.

GRADE: B-

A small-town, widowed police chief (Jon Hamm) investigates the murders of two women with the same name, uncovering a strange conspiracy involving a corrupt sandwich shop chain owner (Micah Stock) and his efforts to steal from the corporation that employs him. Details get stranger as things progress and numerous quirky lowlifes and inept criminals litter the reality-inspired story as if they were killing time before being called for a Coen Brothers caper. The silver lining comes in the form of a believably blooming romance between Hamm and Stock’s neighbor (Tina Fey), a divorcee who gets involved in the investigation and tries to help Hamm move on from the loss in his life.

Maggie Moore(s) is a darkly comedic and idiosyncratic crime thriller that we’ve all seen before in numerous incarnations. The Coens, Lynch, John Dahl, The Nelms Brothers, and countless other modern noir filmmakers all spring to mind as influences while watching it. While its material and presentation aren’t exactly fresh, it’s still well-written, well-made, and well-acted enough to be an entertaining and involving film that features relatable and shaded characters. The film is not breaking any new ground, but it also has no pretense that it is trying to. It proudly and assuredly walks a well-worn and trusted path that leads to a familiar yet still worthwhile destination.

Hamm is endlessly captivating and affable in the role of his grieving, big-hearted, and somewhat neurotic character. He is naturalistically understated and focused and exudes believable skill and intelligence during scenes where he is conducting his investigation. He is sympathetic, vulnerable, and charming in the scenes he shares with Fey, clearly communicating his character’s pained reticence to start a new relationship while simultaneously making his deep attraction to her entirely clear.

Fey is equally believable in her well-written role. Unlike similar roles in similar films, her character is layered and has her own needs outside of servicing the central male character. She exhibits a likable and imperfectly human quality that is believably complex. The scenes between Fey and Hamm are the most natural, interesting, and engrossing parts of the film. They exist and unravel in an entirely organic and lifelike manner that is slightly at odds with the somewhat formulaic and derivative nature that dominates large portions of the film.

Maggie Moore(s) was directed by John Slattery, an excellent actor who is probably best known for his role in the AMC series, Mad Men. Like many actor/directors, he favors a subtle filmmaking style that never draws attention to itself and allows for the performances and writing to be at the forefront of the viewer’s focus. While the execution isn’t exactly inspired, Slattery’s ego-less, maturely sturdy, and objectively observational approach makes it quite clear that the proper portrayal, handling, and development of the characters was his priority while making the film. The film stands out as a rich character study largely because it lacks the ambition for attention-calling filmmaking.

Crime thrillers that ride the line between comedy and drama are plentiful in number. When such films try to succeed with their cleverness and quirkiness alone, they tend to feel forced, obnoxious, and tiringly familiar. When they are like Maggie Moore(s) and center on believable characters who are portrayed by skilled and charismatic actors, they prove there is still some life left in them waiting to be discovered, appreciated, and enjoyed.

GRADE: B

The 2002 French film, Irreversible, is one of the most disturbing and extreme films ever made. Directed and conceived by the fearless and thunderously provocative auteur Gaspar Noé, the breathtakingly bold film tells an overall simple story about two men (Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel) who are seeking revenge after their current lover/ex-lover (Monica Bellucci) is violently raped. What makes the film so fascinating and thematically complex, however, is the fact that it is told entirely in reverse.

The 2002 cut of Irreversible starts in complete chaos with harrowing depictions of brutality, offering more shock value in its first twenty-five minutes than most films with similar intentions offer even a quarter of in their entirety. It gets worse from there, with its violence peaking roughly halfway through during the aforementioned, horrifically prolonged, and near-unbearable rape scene. After that, the full pain of the situation becomes clear as we fully get to know the characters and understand their complicated relationships and histories during the events that precede the rape. The film ends with soaring poeticism, as the full beauty that we know will eventually be destroyed is revealed with powerfully resonating tragedy.

There has been a revised cut of Irreversible floating around Europe since 2019 and it was officially released in America in 2023. Titled Irreversible: Straight Cut, this newer cut tells the exact same story as the original, only it’s presented in chronological order this time around. Straight Cut starts with notable though trivially weightless beauty and ends in blunt and arguably pointless tragedy. The story may be the same, but the overall impact is notably less potent and the far-uglier result isn’t nearly as unique.

The problem with presenting the events of Irreversible in chronological order is that the film was never designed to be experienced in such a way. The entire point of the original cut is its backward narrative (which no doubt had influence from Christopher Nolan’s reverse-structured masterwork, Memento) and how it reveals the full truth of the situation at the very end (or, rather, the beginning that is shown at the end). The original cut leaves the viewer with a flood of emotions and begets endless questions.  It requires work from its audience, so much to the point that multiple viewings and endless thought ponderings are necessary to make complete sense of its sophisticated and layered intentions.

Irreversible: Straight Cut does all the work for you and the ultimate reward isn’t nearly as great. Telling the story in chronological order (and with several minutes of its hypnotic scene transitions excised) makes the film feel very basic and highly exploitative. Beauty and hope, no matter how tragic their destiny may be and how cruel the world they exist within is, are at the core of the original cut. Destruction, brutality, and nihilism are at the core of Straight Cut, and it ultimately leaves the viewer feeling downright miserable.

Like the original cut, Irreversible: Straight Cut’s visceral and grittily realistic filmmaking is still exemplary. The performances from the entire cast still hold up as wholly naturalistic and believable. Both cuts exhibit quality and talent from everyone involved, but it’s the original cut that remains a revolutionary and boundary-pushing addition to the world of cinema. Irreversible: Straight Cut is an interesting experiment and a somewhat failed companion piece to an outright masterpiece, but it should never be mistaken as its far-inferior replacement.

IRREVERSIBLE GRADE: A
STRAIGHT CUT GRADE: C+

Meg Ryan stars in and directs What Happens Later, a wholly endearing and minimalistic romantic comedy. Poorly received by both audiences and critics, the film is far better than it has been given credit for being and deserves to have its day in the sun. Unfortunately, it might be a bit too unconventional for Ryan’s primary rom-com fanbase to fully grasp or appreciate.

Ryan and David Duchovny play former flames whose paths cross over twenty-five years after the end of their relationship. Their flights are cancelled due to hazardous weather conditions and they are both stranded at the same airport. They slowly start to reconnect and old feelings—good and bad–resurface, begetting both great affection and uncomfortable tension. The longer they wait for their flights, the deeper their rediscovery of each other becomes. Eventually, it becomes apparent that their love for one another, and the pain that comes with it, is still entirely present.

Based on the stage play Shooting Star by Steven Dietz, the film has a very theatrical feel and not a conventionally cinematic one—something that probably played a hand in its abysmal reception. Unlike most of today’s popular movies, the meat of each scene in What Happens Later isn’t briefly reached through tight editing but rather through organically naturalistic conversations that unravel in their own time and are captured in lingering and observational takes. The movie feels real, and you’re easily invested in the characters because their interactions are so wholly lifelike.

The realism that dominates the film’s tone is sometimes cleverly balanced with moments of light absurdity and fantastical whimsey. They add to the overall feel-good nature of the film and soften the blow to some of its more serious moments. The consistently humorous tone always reminds us that we’re watching a romantic comedy, though it is a romantic comedy that explores love in a more mature and truthful manner than we’re accustomed to seeing in similar films.

What Happens Later’s success is entirely dependent on the abilities of and the chemistry between its two leads. The fact that Duchovny and Ryan’s vivacious, adorable, and seemingly effortless performances didn’t make waves with the general filmgoing public is beyond me. Their magical chemistry rivals Ryan’s classic parings with Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail and Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally. The two are fascinating to watch, as their characters’ history and their shifting comfort/discomfort with one another are always apparent and believable. There is not a false note to be found in either Ryan or Duchovny’s outstanding work.

What Happens Later showcases Ryan’s abilities as a director splendidly. Aside from a select few cutesy moments that feel tacked on for audience appreciation, she doesn’t allow any contrivances or cliches to falsify the honesty of the movie’s emotional core. Her restraint is exemplary, as the film never announces her presence behind the camera. Her and cinematographer Bartosz Nalazek’s camera set-ups are finely composed and minimal, beautifully capturing the actors and their relationship to each other and their environment with simplicity and care. It is an actor’s movie, and Ryan’s assured but inconspicuous filmmaking clearly understands that by revolving around the rhythm of the performances rather than its own forced style.

I was surprised at how much I liked What Happens Later, as its negative word-of-mouth pretty much had me convinced to skip it. I’m glad I wound up giving the movie a chance, however, because it’s one of the most pleasant surprises of its year. Solid and refined filmmaking, truthful writing, and truly wonderful performances converge to create an endlessly charming movie that completely and refreshingly feels alive.

GRADE: A-

Butcher’s Crossing is a powerfully dramatic film that grabs hold of its audience’s attention from the start and never lets go until it’s finished. It’s an equally stunning and saddening historical lesson that examines America’s continuous disrespect towards and mistreatment of animal lives. It offers an eye-opening depiction of commerce taking over morality in America’s past, shedding light on its significant presence today.

A Harvard student (Fred Hechinger) takes a break from his studies and searches for life experience by traveling the Old West. He soon finds himself on a dangerous and elongated buffalo hunting expedition led by an inhumanely determined rifleman (Nicolas Cage) whose belief that he is on the hunt of a lifetime may or may not be the product of delusion. The hunt grows longer and more dangerous than initially predicted, and the men are forced to brave severe weather while trying to earn their fortune.

The film is beautifully shot by cinematographer David Gallego, who captures the American wilderness with painterly precision and detail. The camera consistently hangs back and lets scenes unfold in longer takes with a distanced subtlety, allowing the action to naturally progress without over-reliance on editing or unnecessary multiple set-ups. The images that comprise Butcher’s Crossing are endlessly beautiful, but they are able to be so without overshadowing the film’s story, characters, or action.

Editor Nic Pezzillo impressively keeps the film moving forward with a steady momentum. There is certainly plenty of adventure in the film, but the slower moments are just as important for character and thematic development. The film is able to switch gears between fast and slow, loud and quiet, and grand and small in a completely organic way that always flows smoothly. The exciting moments and the softer moments work congruently to create a rich and full experience.

Co-writer (based on John Williams’ book) and director Gabe Polsky seems to understand that the success of Butcher’s Crossing is as reliant upon properly conveying its message and history as it is on riveting its audience dramatically. He achieves both marvelously, as the film consistently reaches its audience through both keen intellect and visceral emotion. Few films are able to entertain, move, and enlighten in as effective of a manner as this one does.

Hechinger is the innocent and naive vessel through which the audience experiences the film’s harsh reality. His shock, disbelief, and determined willingness to continue on the hunt are deeply conveyed by the actor, making the tragedy and the confusion of the situation easily felt by the audience. Cage is quietly forceful, focused, and largely unemotional in his role of a sociopathic and blindly ambitious hunter. The actor impressively ignores the opportunities for his trademark theatrical grandness in favor of something more controlled, calculated, and utterly disturbing.

Butcher’s Crossing is a thought-provoking examination of America’s destructive, cruel, and wasteful past. It is also a thunderous, thrilling, and memorable piece of filmmaking that contains finely developed and complexly layered characters. It is a film that has many aspirations and impressively, fascinatingly, and unforgettably manages to deliver on all of them.

GRADE: A

The idea of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind screenwriter Charlie Kaufman penning a kids’ movie is ludicrous. The cynically hilarious, absurdly surreal, bluntly honest, and neurotically charged writer’s sensibilities have served his past, R-rated work quite well. The same mind writing for children is an utterly inappropriate concept at first glance and only seems to be more so the further it is pondered.

Well, it actually does exist. Charlie Kaufman has written a children’s movie. Though it is adapted from Emma Yarlett’s book and doesn’t come from his own story, Orion and the Dark’s screenplay is solely credited to Kaufman. Typical of his work, there are some great, moving, sophisticated, and mind-bending ideas present throughout the film. Whether or not they all fit within a film geared towards reaching and entertaining children, however, is another story.

The results of Kaufman writing for children are predictably mixed. He has the ingenuity to capture a child’s imagination, for certain, but he also obviously lacks interest in telling a cohesively straightforward story that is smoothly digestible. The film often struggles because its script is unevenly paced and overcluttered with complex concepts–things any children’s movie should know to avoid.

The story of Orion and the Dark is filled with creativity. A charmingly good-natured and fear-ridden eleven-year-old boy named Orion (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) struggles his way through everyday life. He is unable to talk to the girl of his dreams, attend field trips, or get through an evening without waking his parents because he is so riddled with anxiety. Typical of Kaufman, we hear his internal fears in voice-over during the film’s opening moments, innocently echoing Nicolas Cage’s neurotic internal rant that opens Adaptation. He is then visited by the embodiment of his greatest fear, Dark (voiced by the endlessly amusing Paul Walter Hauser), who offers to show Orion the not-so-terrifying reality behind his existence to alleviate Orion’s fears. The embodiments of Light, Sleep, Insomnia, Dreams, and Quiet also become inventive and delightful additions to the story.

Orion and the Dark starts to truly falter when it takes on a story-within-a-story (and, eventually, a story-within-a-story-within-a-story) framework that becomes too complicated for its own good and winds up stalling the pacing of the primary storyline. Simplicity would have been a welcome presence in the increasingly convoluted narrative. The film often feels like it is overcompensating with unnecessary content because its main storyline doesn’t have enough meat on the bone to comfortably reach a feature-length. It would have made a terrific and memorable forty-five-minute short film, but the film lacks the consistent and organic forward momentum of ideas and plot needed to sustain a successful and interesting children’s feature.

Orion and the Dark’s sub-Pixar computer animation style and designs are passable but overall generic. Given the ingenuity of the premise and many of its stronger concepts, the film would have benefitted greatly from more creative character renditions and a less common animation style. The film may not entirely succeed, but it does at least try to do something new within the realm of a children’s movie, which is something its visuals could have far better supported.  

Despite its many charms, Orian and the Dark is a bit of a confused movie. It’s a children’s story filtered through some rather adult sensibilities that wind up weakening its entertainment value significantly. It’s hard to tell for whom, exactly, the film was made. Despite the high quality found in many of its concepts, Orion and the Dark makes the mistake of trying to reach too many people and will most likely wind up appealing to very few of them as a result.

GRADE: C

Yorgos Lanthimos has become one of the most singular and identifiable forces in modern filmmaking. The Greek auteur made a name for himself and created an entirely individualistic style with absurdly funny, darkly disturbing, and uniquely inventive films like Dogtooth, The Lobster, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Following the footsteps of filmmakers like Fellini, Lynch, and Gilliam, Lanthimos’ most memorable films follow their own logic and exist in their own universe with their own, entirely exclusive sensibilities. There has never been and there will never be another filmmaker who makes films quite like Yorgos Lanthimos.

Lanthimos’ latest, Poor Things, is an exciting and brilliant continuation of his unfiltered voice (unlike his excellent but somewhat impersonal previous feature, The Favourite). The film is set in a strange alternate reality during a timeless era with both past and futuristic characteristics. Based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, it is something of an updated Frankenstein tale, but with feminist undertones and a beautifully bizarre execution.

A mad but gentle scientist (Willem Dafoe) finds a pregnant woman (Emma Stone) after a suicide attempt. Instead of resuscitating her, he decides to swap her brain for her unborn and still-living baby’s brain, then jolts her to consciousness. Stone then goes on to develop throughout the film, starting as an innocent with infant-like characteristics, then eventually evolving into an individual who is more aware of herself and her body. Once she discovers sex, her life changes and centers around it, making herself vulnerable to an upper-class and increasingly heartless and babyish man (Mark Ruffalo) who wants to control her every move. As she continues to blossom intellectually and emotionally, Stone starts to see life as it is and questions its unfair nature along with its many complications while also struggling to become a woman who is in charge of her own destiny.

The story is endlessly fascinating, and I can’t think of another filmmaker who could have brought it to life as effectively as Lanthimos. His absurdist wit, endlessly creative vision, and boldly courageous filmmaking fit Poor Things’ complex ideas and grand themes perfectly. The film starts off in gorgeous black-and-white, then evolves into a deeply saturated and eye-popping color scheme, externalizing Stone’s interior life as her character’s brain matures and further understands the people and the world around her. The often surrealistic presentation and the darkly mysterious and dryly humorous tone that dominates the movie complement the otherworldly reality of its protagonist perfectly. It is clear throughout that the film follows an expressionistic path rather than a naturalistically straightforward one. Its inspired execution allows audiences to easily empathize with Stone’s confusion, passion, lust, loss, and joy.

The cast of Poor Things is simply perfect. Dafoe is a wonderful contradiction: sweet-natured and gentle, yet seemingly unaware of the inhumanity at the core of his many experiments. He captures this duality with perfection, somehow making his character lovable while also never letting the audience forget his destructive and unethical nature. Ruffalo is just as wonderful as Stone’s eventual oppressor. The inherently likable actor has infectious and lively fun depicting such a despicable and cowardly character.

Stone is simply brilliant in her highly demanding role. She has to essentially play several different characters that represent her in different stages of development throughout the film, and she does so seamlessly and with the appearance of ease. The performance is thoroughly mapped out and thought-through, with Stone always seeming to fully understand where exactly her character is on the journey to enlightenment.

Poor Things is a movie about a woman’s increasing awareness. She becomes aware of herself, of life’s harsher realities, of how many men compulsively try to control women, and of the disturbing truth behind her very existence. It’s a story common people can relate to, yet there is absolutely nothing common about it—not in its nature or its execution. It’s a multi-layered and eye-opening film that owes its extreme uniqueness to both a wholly original story and to the guiding hand of a filmmaker who marches to the beat of his own, gloriously weird drum.

GRADE: A

You’ve probably heard some negative things about the first installment of co-writer/director Zack Snyder’s two-part Netflix film, Rebel Moon. After you watch the first several minutes, it’s hard not to believe that such criticisms are valid. The film’s introductory moments are filled with confusing and excessively detailed exposition designed to set up its sci-fi, Star Wars-like universe. The background and specifics of the universe are lazily communicated through either confusing, overly long, and unfocused voice-over or heavy-handed and unnaturally expository dialogue. During the early moments of the film, Snyder’s weaknesses with character development, direct and simple narrative, and consistent pacing are on full display.

The great surprise that the film offers if you stick with it, however, is the eventual full display of Snyder’s strengths, as well. Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire is a downright gorgeous movie brimming with breathtaking and endlessly innovative visual designs that help build a believable and tangible world. It also showcases impressive practical and digital effects, exquisitely crafted make-up creations, wowing action set pieces that verge on poeticism, and cast members that consistently demand attention. It’s not a perfect movie by any stretch, but, damn, is it a thrilling one that repeatedly sparks the imagination and, despite its debt to many classics of the same genre, gives us a sci-fi/adventure the likes of which we haven’t quite before seen.

The story and the world are quite complex (admittedly to a confusing degree at times), but the plot is actually fairly simple and straightforward. The farming inhabitants of a distant moon are forced to share their already-limited crop with the inhabitants of an army ship led by a sinister and tyrannical captain (Ed Skrein). A loner farmer (Sofia Boutella) fights back and goes on to travel in search of allies to aid in her war. Battles, betrayals, and many forms of enticing drama and riveting thrills ensue.

Boutella, in her first time carrying a large-budgeted feature, is a natural and charismatic movie star. She is wholly believable in her portrayal of a tough-as-nails-yet-vulnerable character. She not only has the depth to convey complex emotions underneath a stoic exterior, but she also has an impressively controlled physicality that communicates great strength and allows her to carry out fight choreography with the appearance of naturalism and ease. Boutella deserves to be a household name for delivering such a disciplined and layered performance.

Skrein is a wonderfully despicable villain. He icily and smoothly moves through his scenes like a sinister reptile, conveying no empathy and minimal humanity. He delivers his lines with direct and emotionless clarity, particularly in moments when he does the most harm. He is a believable threat the moment he appears onscreen and remains as such throughout the film.

It is almost needless to say, however, that the true star of the film is Snyder. The fascinating and meticulous visual details, the bold and grand emotions during key dramatic moments, and the inventively composed camera set-ups could not have been executed in the same manner by any other filmmaker. He may not be making arthouse movies that contemplate God, life, and death (though one could make the argument such themes are still present in much of his work), but he is still an auteur in the truest and purest sense of the word. Love him or hate him, Zack Snyder is, quite simply put, a singular presence in the filmmaking industry.

As its title suggests, Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire is only the beginning of the story. Part Two is set to be released on Netflix a few months after Part One’s release in December of 2023. There is also an extended, R-rated director’s cut of Part One that is to be released in early 2024. I, for one, am hooked on Snyder’s universe and can’t wait for more. While I’m certain it won’t be flawless, I have little doubt that the continuation of Rebel Moon will be fascinating, thrilling, and strikingly beautiful in a way that only Zack Snyder can accomplish.

GRADE: A-