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You may have heard of Serenity, but you may just as well have not, so let me just explain it briefly. They’re billing it as the next great sci-fi adventure, which means it’s a bit like the new Star Wars movies, except more exciting, higher stakes, cooler characters, way more kickassery, and dialogue that doesn’t make you want to slit your throat and rip out your esophagus and strangle the actors and the writer with it. So I guess not that much like the new Star Wars movie at all.

In case you didn’t get the memo, Serenity is the cinematic continuation of the television show Firefly, a sci-fi western that got cancelled after a mere eleven episodes. The persistence of its devoted fans and of director and writer Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel) has gotten it to the big screen after nearly three years of waiting. Now, I don’t much care for science fiction and I don’t like westerns at all, so logically there’s no reason for me to like this movie. Which just goes to show, you shouldn’t put too much credence in logic.

Captain Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his motley crew of ragtail rebels (yeah, I had to say that) are trying to stay under the radar of the pro-homogeneity, anti-motley-crew Alliance, while living peaceful lives as petty criminals. Sadly for them, they are carrying two strays, Simon and River Tam, who have been marked fugitives ever since Simon sprang his younger sister from a sinister Alliance-controlled “Academy”. To complicate things further, River is brilliant, psychic, and—thanks to the Academy—schizophrenic and highly trained in unarmed combat. Thus Mal and his crew are having to outwit the Alliance, led by a ruthless killer known only as Operative, as well as evade a savage cannibalistic group called “reavers”, in order to keep River (and themselves) safe.

Let’s pause for a moment and discuss Nathan Fillion’s performance as Mal Reynolds. Personally, being a sucker for antiheroes, I am in love with him, but do be warned: he is a bit darker than your average antihero. In an ending-up-having-to-shoot-a-guy-he-refused-to-rescue-from-being-raped-and- eaten-by-reavers kind of way. But just be patient: he is crossed in love, don’t forget, and if you wait for a little while he’ll reveal his true colors. Nathan Fillion carries this movie beautifully with hard-faced conviction and frequent flashes of gallows humor. Kudos also to Chiwetel Ejiofor for imbuing his role as the Operative with a chilling blend of cruelty and unshakeable devotion to his cause

While there are, inevitably, a few moments that jar—for instance, when ship thug Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin) limps about expositing awkwardly to sweet-faced mechanic Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite)—and a few events that smack of deus ex machina, particularly if you haven’t seen the show, the movie as a whole works remarkably well. Whedon’s talent for dialogue is unmistakable, as he mixes Chinese slang and old western speech patterns to weirdly genuine effect. The plot soars breathlessly from catastrophe to catastrophe, but Whedon never lets it take itself too seriously. At the same time, though, let’s remember that there are no guarantees. The crew of Serenity have no special powers to see them through. And they could die. And people do.

The main gripe I’ve heard is there’s not enough character development. Fair enough—a number of the crew members don’t get enough screen time to progress far beyond archetype. But the characters who need to be are fleshed-out, and—I’ll be frank here—you’ll get more character development if they make more a sequel.

So do all of us—and especially yourself—a favor, and see this one.

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Posts: 910 | Registered: May 2000  |  IP: Logged | 

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I am really dreading the "Heart of Gold" episode that is coming up soon. I know I'm going to be very sad when Zoe and Wash talk about having a baby.

I can't believe the death of a fictional character has such an effect on me. *sigh*

Someone I know posted a very old Whedon interview about deaths in the Whedonverse. It makes a lot of sense and I agree with the points Joss makes. But I'm still sad, nonetheless.

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Q: One of the things that you do from time to time in Buffy and in Angel is to establish a very important character, and then ruthlessly and unexpectedly kill them off. And you have said that you like surprises, but with Jenny, for example, in Buffy, and with Doyle who was a costar in Angel, you just set up these people and then take them from us. St. Elsewhere did that, Twin Peaks did that, not a lot of TV shows do that. Why do you do that, and what reaction do you get from fans when you do do it?

Joss: Well, I do it because I want to keep people afraid. I want to keep people in suspense. I want people to understand that everything is not perfectly safe. The problem with doing a horror show on television is that you know your main characters are coming back week to week, and you don't really care about somebody who just showed up for one episode.
So every now and then you have to make the statement, "No, nothing is safe," and that's a very effective way of doing that.

If somebody objects, if somebody says, "How could you have killed that character? You have to bring that character back! You have to bring that character back!" I know I've done the right thing. If they go, "Oh, they're dead," then I killed the wrong person, because nobody cares.

One of the things that people always shy away from is killing a sympathetic character. When I worked on Speed, there was a character who died, a lawyer that Alan Ruck played, and I took out the lawyer. He was a bad man. He was terrible. You know, he was causing trouble and he ended up dying, and I turned him into a likeable, sort of a doofy toursit guy, and they're like, "Well now we can't kill him!" And my opinion was, "Well now you should, because now people will actually care when he dies." NPR Interview

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Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged | 

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I want to meet that child one day.

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Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged | 

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There is one, ONE reference in the whole movie before the end to Simon and Kaylee having any sort of sexual tension.

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I would dispute this. Pretty much every scene in which the two of them interacted, or any scene in which Kaylee observed Simon or spoke about him, it was obvious that they cared for each other. I mean, blatantly obvious.

A line does not have to be spoken for meaning to be conveyed. While someone reading the script might miss all the meaningful looks being thrown around, I don't know how it'd be possible for someone to miss that in a movie. You'd almost have to have Asperger's.

I got the same vibe from the "Zoe/Wash not obvious enough" and "Mal too mean" complaints; in all cases, while the script didn't address these issues, the actors made the characters' feelings explicit. We KNOW Mal is anguishing over his decisions -- almost to the point of crying -- and acting tougher than he is, even though he never says it, because we can see it on his face; we know Zoe and Wash are madly in love, because we see it in their eyes -- and when Zoe goes berserk on the reaver after Wash's death, we know why. Even though it's never actually said.

Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999  |  IP: Logged | 

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I would dispute this. Pretty much every scene in which the two of them interacted, or any scene in which Kaylee observed Simon or spoke about him, it was obvious that they cared for each other. I mean, blatantly obvious.

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Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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Kaylee spent the whole movie caring about the well being of EVERYONE equally, and never gave Simon any extra due.

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Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999  |  IP: Logged |