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SERENITY: A REVIEW
By Robert B. Taylor
Originally published at aint-it-cool-news.com (June 2005)
So another round of Serenity advance screenings, another round of reviews. I figured I'd submit one, as I caught the movie in Pittsburgh on Thursday. A Whedon devotee, I am well-versed in the world of Firefly having written an essay called "The Captain May Wear the Tight Pants, but It's the Gals Who Make Serenity Soar" for the book Finding Serenity, which you've been so graciously hawking at the site.
Bottom line: If you enjoy smart science-fiction, you'll like this movie. And if you were a fan of Firefly, you should LOVE this movie.
I'll tiptoe around the spoilers and won't bog this thing down with plot details. Not that it matters, since, like all of Joss Whedon's work, this movie is more about characters than it is plot. Oh, sure, there's a nice thematic throughline about protecting free will and human individuality at all costs, but the emotion of the story comes from Captain Mal Reynolds and his crew, not from any MacGuffin that drives the story.
Serenity is not a science-fiction film in the vein of Star Wars. It's not epic. It's not structured around mythic archetypes. Instead, if I had to compare Whedon's first big-screen effort to another well-regarded outer space yarn, I'd equate it to Aliens, another movie about how a diverse group of people react when their backs are to the wall. After all, both Ripley and her marines and Mal and his crew are stalked by ruthless, shadowy killers. The step from the aliens to the Reavers is not a large one. Both have a female action lead. Both share a skeptical view on big government and/or greedy corporations. And, honestly, can't Adam Baldwin's Jayne be a distant cousin to Bill Paxton's Hudson. (Maybe none of this comes as a shock given Joss' rather notorious involvement in the Alien series.)
Serenity is joyfully thrilling, often hilarious, and occasionally moving. The Reavers also offer up a few good scares. I believe my butt even left the seat on one occasion. Whedon remains the master at mixing genres. The version we saw Thursday seemed to be almost complete. No placeholder scenes. The strong F/X looked mostly finished. About the only thing missing was end credits. (The music even seemed very Firefly-esque, what with the rootsy acoustic guitar, and I didn't recognize any of the themes from elsewhere. So were parts of this the actual score? I'm honestly not sure, but I wouldn't bet against it.)
The cast stands out, which will be no surprise to anyone who's ever watched the show. Baldwin is still knocking one-liners out of the park as the ship's token wiseass. (A running gag about his tendency to overdo it on the weaponry -- especially his fondness for a good supply of grenades -- earns big smiles.) Joss often says Malcolm Reynolds is his Han Solo, and Nathan Fillion has that same rascally twinkle in his eye that Harrison Ford did back in '77. Yes, he's slightly grumpier at the beginning of the movie than he was at the end of the TV series. But the man's got to have an interesting character arc, and Fillion pulls it off nicely. Summer Glau cuts a mighty fine action-hero pose. The big new addition -- Chiwetel Ejiofor as The Operative -- is a successful one. His merciless, government-employed assassin easily ranks among the Fireflyverse's great villains.
Heading into the movie, I was aware that most Internet grumbling about the movie was directed at the movie's two BDDs (Big Damn Deaths), although I was unaware which characters bought the farm until last night. I assure you, neither is as jarring as some would have you believe. The first is not surprising at all, being the deceased is probably the most expendable person in Joss' large cast. His death is noble and organically fits with the story. The second BDD -- the more controversial one -- is, I will admit, a bit sudden. Not Anya-in-the-Buffy-series-finale sudden, mind you. But sudden none the less. And, yes, it seems the crew recovers a tad quickly from said character's demise. But his death does actually serve a point in the movie by confirming that Reavers are not something you want to mess with, and by movie's end, proper enough tribute is given to his passing.
Honestly, the only real problem with the movie (from a fan's perspective) is that it constantly forces you to say to yourself, "Damn this is cool … but just think of how much cooler it would have been if Joss had five years to tell this story instead of two hours!" When Firefly fans say they aren't pleased with Serenity, I'm pretty sure they're not considering the concessions that must be made when fitting such a massively rich universe into a two-hour movie. As a result, some characters are glossed over, and the general public might find themselves sporadically lost. (If you were a Firefly newbie and watched this movie, I don't think you'd even know that Inara was a prostitute.) The Reavers are fierce and frightening but still more of a token movie menace than they would have been if their mythology could have been slowly revealed over the course of several seasons. And, yes, I'm sure the deaths of beloved characters could have been handled much more to everyone's liking if Joss had hours and hours to devote to such a painful loss instead of Serenity's final 20 minutes.
Well, he didn't. Fox gave up the show, and this is what we got in instead. Well, I'll take it … and not just as a consolation prize. I'll take it as a brilliant and charming bit of sci-fi from a first-time movie director. (Consider that for a moment. It's a fact that is being overlooked since Joss is treated as a fanboy deity. But this is his first time working on a project of this scale, and he handles it deftly.) I'll take it as a more-than-worthy expansion of a wonderful, little show that didn't get enough time or support to find its audience. And, hopefully, I'll one day be able to take it as the rip-roaring first act of a successful sci-fi trilogy.
If you're a sci-fi fan, ignore the hype. Ignore the backlash. Ignore all that nonsense. Just go see it and judge the movie on its own strengths. Because there are many. And anyone who says otherwise isn't really looking.
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