Serenity (USA) (Fox) (2005) ****iMDB
Director: Joss Whedon Cast: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, Summer Glau
As a die-hard sci-fi reader I am not very often excited by movies and tv shows that tackle the genre as most of them manage to trivialize the possibilities that science fiction offers and reduce them to either bad, ugly aliens that want to destroy the earth and the humans or to some sort of future where any type of explosion is possible since it can be explained by a not yet discovered technology. There are obviously exceptions to this rule so, without digressing for too long I will just say that Firefly was by far one of my favorite TV shows of the last 4-5 years.
The reson Firefly stood out, at least for me, was not the sci-fi western appeal, the campy humor or the future that it described, but rather the fact that each of its eight main characters had a very definite, independent personality, their own background story, motivation and secrets that were only hinted at.
Serenity comes in, trying at the same time to bring some closure to a series that was cancelled after only 13 episodes were produced, while also having to stand on its own feet as a movie that would appeal to those (many) that have never seen the show. Therefore Serenity cannot afford taking as much time as the show introducing and fleshing out each character, and approaches head on, the biggest mistery that the tv show was promising to unfold - the story of River (Summer Glau).
The biggest problem of Serenity is that it will leave the Firefly fans wanting for more. The rest of the viewers however, can fully enjoy a well done, funny, dynamic, sci-fi western.
Posted by TheCasualCritic on October 6, 2005 03:45 PM