Grant Young

Space faring technology and crops get farmed with a sickle, not even a primitive combine harvester; however it is important to do it by hand, except the hover wagon to bring it back is mandatory. Plasma and laser rifles and a giant ship that runs on coal shoveled by hand. Ship main gun cranked by hand that takes several minutes to aim. Apparently the only food one needs is flour. The world building is extremely weak in this movie and that hurts it badly. Taking and mashing together elements of the past 200 years of human history (and presumably the next 100 what with the laser rifles and plasma swords and all) just doesn't build a cohesive universe upon which to thread a narrative. Sofia Boutella delivers a respectable performance as Kora but she could have had 6 months with some professional trainers and bulked up just enough to be believable. Her arms and shoulders have next to zero muscle at all. You can have all the finesse and dexterity in the world, but some strength is still required to swing a sword with any force, manage a very large pistol and its recoil, etc. I would not pick a different actor though, she's fine, they just didn't prepare her for the role properly. So many sequences are entirely predicable such that despite the visual eye candy, it becomes boring. All in all it has its redeeming moments and qualities, and also just a lot of tropes and stale old ideas everyone has seen 100x already.