I’ll say this. Snyder can create some great visual images, but as a director, I often find myself disappointed by his work. Sadly, the first installment in his Rebel Moon series leaves me unimpressed with what he’s created.

Playing as a cross between Star Wars: A New Hope (apparently Rebel Moon was originally going to be a Star Wars film) and The Seven Samurai (or Battle Beyond the Stars if you want to keep things spacey), there are no big surprises, no impressive set pieces, and all of the characters are familiar cardboard-like tropes.

We follow Kora (Sofia Boutella), a soldier with an unsurprising connection to the ruling tyrannical regent hiding out on a remote farming planet, that falls afoul of Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein) and his battleship.

Travelling with a naive farmer Gunnar (Micheal Huisman), Kora sets off across the planet, and then the galaxy to find warriors to help protect the village. They find a roguish pilot, Kai (Charlie Hunnam), a disgraced alcoholic general, Titus (Djimon Hounsou), a dangerous swordswoman seeking revenge, Nemesis (Bae Doona), a wanted revolutionary, Bloodaxe (Ray Fisher), and a noble warrior, Tarak (Staz Nair).

Along the way there are action sequences, dragged out almost interminably with Snyder’s need to do everything in slow-motion, which admittedly delivers some great visuals, but doesn’t do anything to move the characters, and the narrative forward.

I wanted to like this one, and while you can argue that there is nothing new under the sun, this one is so blatantly uninspired story-wise that I can list off half a dozen films that have similar plots, and are much more enjoyable.

I will continue to follow the installments as they are released, hoping that the first film is the weakest of the bunch and that Snyder delivers us something truly outstanding, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

I do like some of the ship designs, and you can see a number of influences playing across all of them and the universe has a nice lived-in feel. Snyder works to build a history to the worlds he is presenting, and I think it would be a lot of fun to explore, but the characters, their action and the story is so predictable that it doesn’t captivate.

Of course, with the lack of an engaging story, gives you time to look at the production design. Yes, all the big things seem to be computer-generated, and reminds me how much I miss model work when it comes to space epics.

Snyder has a solid cast, the visuals are fairly impressive, but as always, or at least to me, Snyder fumbles on the narrative and the characters. lets see if he fixes that when we get to April, and the next installment in the series, The Scargiver.