Serene? Not a chance, the Fire flies on in this! (Serenity (DVD))

Name: Ailran

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Product:	Serenity (DVD)
Date:	25.10.05 (138 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: characters, writing, effects, story, setting, script, the look...... everything!

Disadvantages: The original series having to be cancelled to get this film.

A bit of History:

Firefly was the first show from the fertile mind of Joss Whedon outside of the Buffyverse. Full of everything you would expect from him, his trademark banter, smart, interesting characters and backed up by a storyline that keeps you guessing.
Firefly was the hit series that never was, that should have been as big as his other two creations but was scuppered and shot down by crazy studio executives. For some reason they decided to show the pilot two parter, you know the one that sets everything up and introduces the characters, at the end of the eleven episodes they actually showed (out of the 14 made). This has to be one of the most stupid, and bizarre, decisions ever in the history of TV programming! They gave the show no chance as without seeing that two parter the viewers would have been lost, completely.
Fortunately Firefly was the recipient of some glowing reviews, word of mouth and phenomenal sales figures for the DVD box set and a writer/director who wanted to continue his story. Three years later the story of Firefly continues on the big screen with…… Serenity, the name of their ship!

The Film

Serenity carries on from where the film left off, but don’t worry if you haven’t seen the series as the prologue manages to not only show the fans something we haven’t seen before but to also bring the newcomers up to date with the world and background to the main plot in a few short minutes. It is a bit ‘mechanical’ but it is also very necessary. I would rather them do that then take a long time introducing things to new viewers and slowing the pace down, a wow does his film zip about and along!

Serenity is a space western at heart; it has that frontier spirit and that desire to make a living in a world that is somewhat violent.
Earth is over populated and has spread out into space to populate other worlds. The planets where Serenity is set consists of two types of planets, the inner, rich technology led ones (modern cities, called The Alliance)) and the outlying agricultural like ones (old west like towns).
Fed up with the way they were treated a ‘civil’ war erupted between the two that was eventually won by the Alliance, who know rule the whole system and police it.

Captain Mal Reynolds and his second in command Zoe fought on the losing side of this galactic war and are now space rogues. They do what they have to to get by, taking all sorts of jobs to do so, from petty robbery to transporting good with no questions asked.

The film starts with Simon rescuing his sister River from an Alliance facility where she was being kept and an assassin called ‘The Operative’ being set the job to find her and bring her back by the Alliance.

We then see Reynolds and his crew, including Simon and River, about to embark on a little job involving the requisitioning of some gold form a bank! A robbery that goes well until the arrival of The Reavers, cannibal space pirates who kill and eat everything (and everyone) they can and resemble the bad guys from Mad Max 2.

From here on in we have a finely tuned story involving the crew trying to survive with the Operative and Alliance forces after them. They need to stay one step ahead while trying to find a way of getting them off their backs. Of course there is more to it than just that but don’t want to give too much away.

Joss Whedon is a writer who manages to do a complex plot in a simple, watchable way (see many Buffy episodes). Here his prologue covers all the bases superbly, introducing everyone, the situation, the bad guys and the universe in one fell swoop.

More importantly in my mind he has managed, very cleverly, to blur the boundaries between TV and Film. Serenity feels like a TV show, with it’s between character banter, its witty, sarcastic comments and, more than anything else, it characterisation, but looks like a film.
This could be because I know the characters and can see it is an extension of the TV show but I don’t think so. Films, especially action films concentrate on action to the detriment of the characterisation. TV shows, by their weekly nature, tend to rely more on the characters than the story to bring people back every week. Serenity manages to blend these two necessities in such a way to make this THE best sci-fi film for years!

Directed by Joss Whedon, his first time helming a film, it shows occasionally his lack of film directing experience. Not enough to make a difference but there were a couple of times I thought that a scene could be filmed slightly better.
The cast are all round excellent, Mal and River are the main focus points of this film but all the others slip back into their roles as if they hadn’t ever left them.

Star performance though goes to Chiwetel Eiffoldor as The Operative, he is down right scary in some scenes just from his words and his body language. With his recent run of three great performances (Kinky Boots & Four Brothers being the others) he should be destined for greatness.

Finally as a final note as to how good this film is, I tend to make notes as I watch a film and my notes for this film consisted of next to nothing, I was that caught up in the film!

Some top moments:

Mal’s talk with Inara, a conversation that had me laughing at the poor Captain!
River in the bar and the first appearance of The Reavers

Certificate: 15
Running time:

The Crew:

Nathan Fillion (the evil priest in the final series of Buffy) as Captain Mal Reynolds.
Gina Torres (Angel, Matrix) as Zoe, second in command of Serenity.
Alan Tudyk (I, Robot, Dodgeball) as Wash, the pilot and husband of Zoe.
Adam Baldwin as Jayne, the tough guy of the crew
Jewel Staite as Kaylee, the farm girl with a natural ability with machines (and has the best line in the film!)
Summer Glau as River Tam
Sean Maher as Simon Tam, the doctor on the ship.
Morena Baccarin as Inara, a companion, a sort of upmarket prostitute.
Ron Glass as Shepherd Book, a mysterious man who knows a lot about The Alliance.

Summary: THE best sci fi film for a long, long time!