For those who don't know, Serenity is a ship. It is also, however, a crucial battle during which the character Capt. Mal Reynolds' side, the rebels, lost their independence to the Alliance, a huge Sino-American power that rules the solar system (a new one) and is responsible for making the planets of that solar system inhabitable... to varying degrees. Got that? Well, it's okay if you don't quite yet.
Pretty much the important people are a ragtag group of outsiders who live their lives finding work, honest or dishonest (don't much care which) on the untamed frontier of the Outer Planets. (Think Tatooine.) Things are always hectic and frequently dangerous, but become much more so when two passengers find their way on board: Simon Tam, a young man once on his way to the top who sacrificed everything to rescue his younger sister; and River Tam, his sister whose profound genius made her a victim of cruel experimentation by the Alliance government. Alright, that's the premise, and that's all the time I want to spend on the facts. Now, onto subjectivity!
Much as I wanted this movie to amaze me, I was very worried that it would not. Joss Whedon is one of my idols, but he has never before created a motion picture (laymen might know him from the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and he has until now been a TV guy). Both of my feelings were correct: it was indeed amazing, and I would say it did also have problems. Let me explain.
First (because it's less fun), the bad. The pacing was less of a problem than I had feared, but the movie still did not have the rhythm of most movies you are likely to see. Partially, of course, this is a positive thing: the cliché arc of a plot is not entirely desirable. However, events happened in such a way that even a seasoned fan like myself could not incorporate things quickly enough, and spent much of the movie slightly disoriented. By far a bigger problem for me, however, were the story lines. EVERYTHING is concluded, and that made me very sad. Let me emphasize that, had this been a movie like any other, the conclusions would have been perfectly acceptable. But one of the things that made all of Joss Whedon's work and especially Firefly unique was simply how MUCH each episode contained -- there were enough subplots, which advanced at a naturally slow pace, that a single movie could not do them justice and bring them to conclusion. As a result, character and plot arcs simply *end*, at the right place of course but far before the right time. It is such a letdown to see everything you wanted to happen on the show over whole seasons happen in a single three-minute scene, and there's no way to alleviate that no matter how wonderful that scene is.
Oooh! Okay, now good stuff. First of all, the writing was as excellent as I had hoped, the occasional clichés always parodying themselves or ending with a wonderful surprise (in particular, one exchange late in the movie right before a big-scary-death-showdown almost lost me, but then ended with a wonderful and surprising line that only made me love the characters involved that much more -- you'll know it when you see it. People clapped). Something that will strike Firefly fans is how intense this entire movie is. I jumped in my seat a few times, one of which happened in the very first scene. The final battle, and the raggedly emotional moments, are what you would expect from an action movie only ten times more involving -- there is more darkness in the characters, and the climax will have you wondering how they'll make it through, not in an interested but eternally optimistic way, but kind of in a hopeless way. If you always wanted to be one of the characters in the series, you might see this movie and be glad that you aren't, because they really go through a hell of a lot.
I laughed, I gasped, I put my hand on my heart near then end and it stayed there for nigh half an hour, I (almost) cried, and when the Firefly theme song began to play during the end credits I sang along because I felt a compulsion to do so. If that doesn't make sense to you now, see the movie. Afterwards I felt raw, I felt shocked, I felt amazed, I felt happy, and I felt entertained. I did not feel let down. And let me tell you, I did NOT feel ready to leave.
Note: I am a fan of Whedon and Firefly, and write from that viewpoint. I saw an advance screening hosted by Joss himself at Wesleyan University, Joss' and my college of choice, but this was definitely the final product. I did my best, but this movie was difficult to review just because of how DIFFERENT it is than most movies you see at the theatre.
Another Note: The fights scenes ruled.
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