Serenity (PG-13)
Mike:
Scott:
Mike: Scott is on vacation, so this will be our first solo review.
Today's review is of Serenity
, based on the short lived series Firefly, a movie about the adventures of the spaceship Serenity and its crew.
The crew of Serenity takes on any job that will pay. Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) is the captain, His second in command is Zoe (Gina Torres) and her husband, Wash (Alan Tudyk) is the pilot. The other main crew members are the mechanic, Kaylee (Jewel Staite), and the soldier, Jayne (Adam Baldwin). Malcolm decides to take on two new passengers, a doctor, Simon Tam (Sean Maher) and his sister River (Summer Glau). The two are fugitives from The Alliance, the evil empire that runs things. River turns out to be more important than anybody realizes.
So what did I think of the movie?
I liked this movie. It's a thrill ride; it had great action, humor, dialogue and effects. The movie was written and directed by Josh Whedon, who is famous for his work on the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. His strong suit seems to be dialogue. It has a natural humor that flows from the situations, instead of being tacked on. There are many quotable lines throughout. In this regard, this might be the science fiction Napoleon Dynamite of the year.
I never have seen the series, but I found I could follow what was going on, without having seen it. It makes me want to investigate some of his other work. In the meantime, I will be ordering the original Firefly series from Netflix.
There are no real famous actors in the movie. Unless you are a fan of the show, you may not recognize many of the actors. The only actors I knew were minor characters. In fact one of them is Ron Glass, who is probably most famous for being on Barney Miller.
The movie is a mix of many things we have seen before, but presented in a new and different way. It's synthesized much like what Quentin Tarantino does with 70s B movies. There are times when it reminded me of other Science Fiction movies like Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner and Star Trek.
The film plays a lot like a western, even down to them using revolvers, instead of blasters or laser guns. Even much of the dialogue and music flows like out of old westerns .The music is a lot of harmonicas and guitars.
Whedon has definitely created his own world that completely fits together. It has its own logic and look. Even though it seems to borrow from all over, this is one of the more original Sci-Fi movies to come out in awhile. I have to go back to the original Stargate movie to find something to compare it to.
There's a good story as we try to figure out what the big mystery is. River Tam looks to be the key. Our heroes try to decide whether to keep her or cut their losses. The Serenity crew are rebels fighting against the Alliance- a sort of evil galactic empire. Where have we seen that before? They are not purely good as they pull off a bank heist at the beginning to keep themselves going. But, it's obvious from their actions that they are the good guys. The villain known as the Operative has charm and is very even tempered, but you don't want to cross him. This leads to some great fight scenes.
I was completely engrossed in the story, wondering what would happen next. The movie has some surprises. They even kill off a major character. I won't call this a spoiler, since I won't tell you who or when. Just letting you know it's not completely predictable.
We try to point out the Easter eggs as we see them and this movie is no exception. In a scene toward the end, our heroes end up at a research facility called C57D. Forbidden Planet fans will recognize this as the model number of the spaceship in that classic.
I give this movie 4 stars overall and 4 stars for science fiction action movie. It's been awhile since science fiction fans have had a decent movie to look forward to.
Just remember "I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar". Trust me this will make sense once you've seen it.
