I watched Zach Snyder’s Rebel Moon a week or so ago and…it was watchable but to be fair that’s a fairly low bar.

A better question would perhaps be ‘Is it any good?’

And the answer is ‘No, it is not. Not really.’

Zach Snyder isn’t much of writer and while he didn’t tackle Rebel Moon alone (while Snyder wrote the story, the screenplay was written with Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten) it takes so much from better science-fiction films that he should be playing royalties.

What was to become Rebel Moon began life as a Star Wars treatment, which Lucasfilm declined on and while it was retooled by Snyder, Johnstad and Hatten, in terms of its structure it’s still very much a Star Wars movie.

Then there’s the story, which feels very much like it’s cribbing from Battle Beyond The Stars (1980) – though to be fair it, Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope and Battle Beyond The Stars were inspired by Kiroswawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) – though visually it appears to be taking a lot Serenity (2005) and The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

And that’s the problem (and that’s not only say that the writing and visual esthetic are the only issues) namely watching Rebel Moon is going to remind viewers of a lot of better movies.

And that’s not something you want to do.