Rebel Moon: Part 2 - The Scargiver is an empty feast. It's a relentless onslaught of explosions, sci-fi tropes and meaningless exposition that amounts to nothing. And yet somehow it's still better than the first film in Zack Snyder's wannabe sci-fi epic franchise for Netflix, Rebel Moon: Part 1 - A Child of Fire. (What do these titles really mean? Who cares.)
With all of the dull table-setting complete, Snyder is able to let his true talents soar in Rebel Moon: Part 2 by delivering endless battles filled with slow-motion action and heroic poses. It looks cool, I just wish it added up to something. Anything.
Spoilers ahead for Rebel Moon: Part 2.
If you somehow missed the first Rebel Moon film, the basic setup is that it's Star Wars meets The Seven Samurai. Sofia Boutella stars as Kora, a former elite soldier of an evil empire who is hiding out in an all-too idyllic farming village, just planting and harvesting her days away. When a group of military baddies kills the chief of the village and starts threatening a young girl, Kora goes on a murdering spree (in defense!), leaving the community open to a retaliatory attack.
She spends the first movie recruiting potential warriors to defend the village, including a fallen gladiator (Djimoun Hounsou) and a bad-ass swordswoman (Doona Bae). (Their names are Titus and Nemesis, respectively, but those don't really matter because the characters are paper thin.)
Full disclosure: I tried writing a review for the first Rebel Moon and just gave up in disgust. It was a shockingly boring epic, so much so that it took me several days to watch without falling asleep. By the end, I was only left with a feeling of dread, knowing that there was still another two hours of Rebel Moon ahead of me.
It's somewhat empty praise, but at least I didn't fall asleep during The Scargiver. Mostly, that's due to the film actually having a sense of momentum and a lot more action. You can turn off your brain and enjoy the pretty pictures, much like you could for Snyder's Sucker Punch, Justice League and Watchmen adaptation. He's more a stylist than a natural storyteller, but occasionally Snyder's visuals, such as a baffling montage of our heroes harvesting wheat, can be almost poetic.
It's just a shame that I didn't care much about the film's characters or any aspect of its story. James Gunn's Guardian's of the Galaxy trilogy made us fall in love with a band of misfits and screwups, with storylines that directly led to their personal and emotional growth. The crew in Rebel Moon, instead, feel like cardboard cutouts from better movies, and the overall plot feels forced (there's even setup for another film by the end).
Hounsou tries to sell the pathos of Titus with his eyes, but he can only do so much. And while Bae's warrior woman exudes cool (and has a very compelling flashback), she's mostly wasted when the action really heats up. Then there's Jimmy, a robot voiced by Anthony Hopkins, who is briefly introduced in the first film and pops up for a few minutes here to kick butt. Why? It doesn't matter. Somehow that character is also important enough to serve as the narrator for both Rebel Moon films (but really it seems Snyder just wanted Hopkins' voice adding gravitas).
Perhaps the only real saving grace for Rebel Moon: Part 2, much like the first film, is Ed Skrein as the villainous Atticus Noble. As a sadistic baddie, he's really nothing new, but Skrein's heightened scenery chomping makes the character interesting to watch. Where Darth Vader exudes a calm sense of dread, Skrein's Noble is entertainingly chaotic, like the Joker crossed with Christoph Waltz's Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds. He just has a lot of fun being bad — that's something!
Given how popular the first film was (according to Snyder and Netflix, anyway), we'll likely see more Rebel Moon down the line. Snyder previously said he'd like to do a six-hour director's cut of both films, and he recently told Radio Times that he'd like to stretch the Rebel Moon series out to four or six films. Somehow, that just feels like a threat.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/rebel-moon-part-2-review-a-slow-mo-sci-fi-slog-195505911.html?src=rss Amazon's live adaptation of Fallout was so well-received, the fourth main game in the franchise had a resurgence in sales almost a decade after it was released. If you were ever worried about its fate despite the success it enjoyed, you can rest easy, for now: Amazon has already renewed the show for a second season, mere days after the first one debuted. The Fallout universe is set in a post-apocalyptic world, decades after a nuclear war decimated the planet. Ella Purnell plays Lucy in the series, a vault dweller who was forced to go to the surface to rescue her father.
Walton Goggins seems to be a hit with audiences as the Ghoul, a radioactive noseless bounty-hunting corpse. We called him an "enlightened choice" for the role in our review and found this to be his most engaging performance yet. As a whole, we liked Fallout almost as much as we liked the TV adaptation of the The Last of Us. It features fantastic visuals with detailed sets and costumes that stay true to the source materials, and it has a story that flows well and doesn't feel like it's struggling to juggle several different plotlines. The game is also violent and gory, though, and it's not really for the faint of heart.
The show is one of Amazon's projects under executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, the creators of Westworld, who Prime Video signed back in 2019. "We can’t wait to blow up the world all over again," Nolan and Joy said, indicating that they'll be back for the next season, though Amazon has yet to announce when it will begin production or if it has a timeline for the project.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fallout-has-already-scored-a-green-light-for-a-second-season-103013664.html?src=rssWith the Eras Tour still under way and The Tortured Poets Department dropping today, you can't shake off Taylor Swift these days. She's everywhere — in the news, on streaming services and on social media, which now includes Threads. Taylor's Threads account, and her first post, are going live around midnight. And if you're one of the first people to share her post, you'll get a custom badge based on her new album's artwork that you can display on your Threads profile.
Meta has been dropping hints and releasing easter eggs for Swifties over the past week as part of a countdown for her album release today. You may have even seen its call to pre-follow Swift on Threads, along with the shimmer effect that's been showing up on conversations on the social network with Taylor-related hashtags. Celebratory hearts pop up when you like relevant posts, as well.
On Instagram, you'll be able to change the background in your DMs with one that's inspired by TPD's artwork. The company told Engadget that the countdown on Taylor's Instagram profile will also reset, and you can apparently expect yet another surprise in-app experience to go live at 2AM ET.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/surprise-taylor-swift-is-joining-threads-on-the-day-her-new-album-drops-040026147.html?src=rss Supergiant Games just treated Hades fans to an extensive look at the game's upcoming sequel. Seriously — the developer hosted a three-hour livestream that showed off Hades II's gameplay, new features and mechanics, as well as the new designs for its characters based on the gods of Greek mythology. Supergiant's Creative Director Greg Kasavin and Studio Director Amir Rao demonstrated the abilities of the game's new protagonist, Melinoë. While she's the sister of Zagreus, the first title's protagonist, and Hades II is a direct sequel to the original, Kasavin and Rao said players don't need to have prior knowledge of the first game and of Greek mythology to enjoy it. Old fans, however, will catch "delightful references" here and there.
Melinoë is a witch and assassin, who's adept with her staff and can wield magic, and has a pretty different playstyle from Zagreus, as the gameplay footage showed. Kasavin and Roe also showed off new gods like Apollo, returning ones like Aphrodite and Demeter, new resources and various environments within the game. They played the technical test version of Hades II, however, which means certain environments and elements could still go through some changes before the final product is released.
The developer is hoping to fix any issues technical test players might find expeditiously so that the game can go into early access, which is expected to take place sometime this spring.