'Rebel Moon' review: Zack Snyder space opera embraces the familiar

Zack Snyder's "Rebel Moon" is a cornball space adventure that's like "Star Wars," "Lord of the Rings," "Guardians of the Galaxy" and a few dozen other signposts — a little bit of "Star Trek," a dash of "Pirates of the Caribbean," a hint of "Starship Troopers" — all rolled into one.

To its credit, it borrows from a solid slate of sources, and while it's highly derivative, it's also highly watchable. Its referential nature helps it clip along at an expedient pace, and while it never feels like you're watching something new, it at least feels like you're watching something familiar. "Rebel Moon" is like coming home.

In the movie — its full cumbersome title is "Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire," and yes, a Pt. II is due out in April — a peaceful group of farmers on a far off moon known as Veldt is raided by an evil group of space Nazis known as the Motherworld. Its commander, Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein, appropriately dastardly, like if "Inglourious Basterds'" Col. Hans Landa was played by Cillian Murphy) wants the planet's crops and puts everyone on notice: He'll be back in 10 weeks, and he expects a full bounty. Clock is ticking.

Kora (Sofia Boutella), an ex-Motherworld soldier, leads a resistance against the tyranny, and along with Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), a Veldt farmer, she cruises around the galaxy to gather up a team to take a stand against the bad guys. This is where "Rebel Moon" picks up steam as the pair visits planets with names like Daggus and Moon of Pollux, the latter of which sounds like an '80s goth band, in side missions that feel like tiny episodes inside the larger whole. It moves so quickly that at one point Snyder stages an elaborate fight between a swordsmith (Doona Bae) and a spider-lady (Jena Malone) whom we've barely even met. Wait, who are these two again?

But the point is "Rebel Moon" moves, and its stakes are always clear. Charlie Hunnam plays a mercenary who joins the squad, same with Staz Nair, who plays an imprisoned blacksmith who tames a giant beastly blackbird creature in the film's most purely entertaining sequence. Djimon Hounsou plays a warrior the crew picks up along the way, while Sir Anthony Hopkins voices a C-3PO like robot who stays back on Veldt while the gang visits different planets. (He probably should have tagged along on the journey, they could have used his banter.)

Snyder shoots in heroic low angles, pulling from his own "300" playbook, while also either nodding to or ribbing J.J. Abrams — it's unclear which — by employing an overabundance of lens flares. We know where "Rebel Moon" is headed, and there aren't many surprises along the way. But it's never dull, and this dubstep space opera knows when to drop the beat.

agraham@detroitnews.com

'Rebel Moon'

GRADE: B-

Rated PG-13: for sequences of strong violence, sexual assault, bloody images, language, sexual material and partial nudity

Running time: 134 minutes

On Netflix