I've been waiting for Serenity for a long time. I don't know if I would call myself a "Whedonite" reffering of course to Joss Whedon, the man responsible for Serenity as well as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. His work on the tv show Firefly, which inspired the movie, hooked me instantly. Creating a world I'd describe as Star Wars meets Unforgiven. Due to many problems with the shows run it was cancelled after a mear fourteen episodes. Far to short for many fans. I was among the droves to lick their chops at the sight of this movie.

So how does it stack up?

Pretty well.

Plot (some spoilers, so read at your own risk):

Serenity follows the exploits of the space ship with the same name. Picking up some time after Firefly we find the crew robbing a settlement with the help of their powerful psychic crew member River. Turns out River, being a psychic killing machine designed by the government, is pretty popular among the Alliance. Who act as our empire for this series. The Alliance wants River back..bad. So bad in fact that they send a British Blade look a like, or highly trained assasin whichever way you like to look at it, to get her back by any means necessary. This means cornering Captain Malcom Reynolds, our main character/bad ass, and then systematically destroying every settlement and person that ever helped him and his crew. Mal doesn't really take kindly to this and sets off to figure out what the hell to do about this problem. While also trying to keep River in check. Who has begun muttering things about a mysterious thing called "Miranda".

Turns out Rivers psychic powers enabled her to read the minds of some very important government officials. Who don't really like the thought of their secrects being subjected to public viewing. This leads the Serenity crew on a ride that involves some bank robbery, government conspiricy, and space cannibals. Yes, for those of you who watch the show, the reavers play a much bigger part this go around. You figure out the back story of the Reavers, as well as a little resolution as to who could win in a fight, River or an assload of Reavers?

Cast:

Everyone from the show reprises their roles in the movie, although some feel more like cameo's. I like that Whedon at least gave everyone a little screen time. Although it seemed that he favored River and Mal in terms of story telling. Mal as a character seems a little colder than he does in the show, given the subject matter of the movie I can't say I can argue him being written like that. Kaylee (that ships mechanic) is extra perky given her short amount of screen time, and Simon (brother of River) kinda comes off as the bitchy whiner of the group. But as a whole they ship gives off the same vibe as the show. Which is always a good thing when translating something like this to film. What makes this movie, and the show, so good is the way the characters interact with eachother. Whedon does an excellent job of writing dialouge that is both smart and easy to get into. He seems to sit down and write the different parts based off the actors themselves, and as a result they all fit like gloves. I could complain that there isn't enough of the crew intereacting in the way they do on the show. But we're only dealing with two hours as opposed for fourteen, so I can forgive that.

Sets/Camera Work:

This is one of my complaints of this movie. On the show Serenity always seemed like a home, with lots of browns and reds involved to make it seem warm. Here right away all you can notice about the ship is how cold it seems. The cargo area esspecially seems like something you wouldn't want to spend any time in, yet on the show the crew constanly play games there. A minor complaint I know, but it something that struck me as off. The rest of the sets look good enough for what they do. There's some episode I knock offs, particualarly on the planet where Mal meets the bounty hunter for the first time. But the space battle at the end of the movie looks good, and the CG is used well and adds to the story instead of taking away from it. No digital backrounds here (hear that Lucas!). Whedon used the same camera style for Serenity that was used in the show. So the documentary style is here, complete with twitchy camera and handheld shots. My only complaint with the camera work is in one shot were the camera circles the actors for about thirty seconds. It moves to fast and really gives that dizzy feeling I hate in theaters. Maybe it was because of the screen size, but that could have been left out.

Wrap Up (SPOILERS!):

Yeah, some of the crew dies in this movie. Saddest of all for me was Wash, the pilot, his death is so quick at the hand of a Reaver spear and it's so far in the third act of the film that there isn't any emotions for him. Instead they play it as "time to move" and the following scenes seem like they were shot on a different day. Esspecially with his wife, who is also resident ass kicking first mate on the ship, she doesn't seem to emote at all. I didn't even see a tear, which would have been acceptable even if you were about to fight off Reavers. The other cast member who dies at least gets a death speach, and some emotion from Mal is exibited. So at least I got closure there, with Wash it was like "boom, move on". Which is what I think Whedon was going for, so good job if that was the case.

People might dismiss Serenity as a Star Wars knock off. Focusing on the special effects instead of the characters. I'd watch Serenity instead of any of the first trilogy of Star Wars, and probably Jedi too, it's not just for fans of the tv show. A couple people I went with had never seen the show and still enjoyed it, but die hard fans will be giddy. Just like me.

Give it a shot, and then watch the tv show, then see the movie again. It needs to make money so they'll make more.

I give it an A.

mardoc