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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 56.99%
Worth A Look: 21.32%
Average: 11.03%
Pretty Bad: 4.41%
Total Crap: 6.25%
15 reviews, 182 user ratings
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| Serenity (2005) |
by Lybarger
"This one’s for the fans…"
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On TV, Joss Whedon, the creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," can do some pretty amazing things. He can demolish clichés, create vivid characters that get more interesting after each episode and cleverly analyze real world problems through the lens of fantasy. When he has to trim his dense imagination for a two-hour run, the results aren’t as much fun.As someone who’s only seen a brief sampling of Whedon’s work (a few entertaining episodes of "Buffy."), much of the fun of "Serenity" is lost because it takes a while to get oriented in realm Whedon created in his short-lived series "Firefly."
While it may have failed to win the heart of the network that broadcast it, the series sold over 500,000 copies on DVD. As a result, fans can now catch up with the crew of the space pirate ship Serenity as they face yet another crisis.
The ship’s doctor Simon (Sean Maher) has rescued his sister River (Summer Glau) from an Alliance facility where her psychic talents were being used to make her a lethal weapon. She’s 17 and 98 pounds and can take out most armies before they know what hit them.
By taking her on as first a passenger and then a fellow pirate, the crew have made themselves the target of a frighteningly talented assassin named The Operative (a wonderfully sly and intimidating Chiwetel Ejiofor from "Dirty Pretty Things"). Despite the advancements that have been made in weapons in the future where this story is set, he still dispatches his victims with a sword.
Whedon, as expected, can pen dozens of juicy lines. When the Serenity’s captain Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) is asked if he would die for a cause, he replies, "Yes, but that’s not my plan A."
Watching “Serenity” reminds viewers that science fiction need not be a dry witless experience. One wishes that George Lucas had outsourced his dialogue to Whedon during the making of the last four “Star Wars” films. Come to think of it, Whedon also has an easier time with actors than the creator of The Force does.
Sadly, Whedon’s eye for character development suffers when he has to stick to a feature film running time. If you don’t already know every member of the crew’s middle name, have fun trying to tell them apart. Whedon figures, probably correctly, that fans of "Firefly" don’t need detailed introductions to the regular characters.
The rest of us do.
Whedon’s approach frees him up to get on with the story but leaves viewers without the benefit of foreknowledge trying to figure out why Mal has a strained relationship with Inara (Morena Baccarin). Without having this information and an empathy with the characters, the planet hopping and the battles with flesh eating space zombies aren’t as much fun as they should be.I’m not sure in the end that this is really a flaw with Whedon’s work. After all, the movie is still entertains, but he’d have even more fans if he could figure out how to meet the needs of newcomers.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=12621&reviewer=382
originally posted: 10/03/05 16:26:35
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 Edinburgh Film Festival. For more in the 2005 Edinburgh Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2006 Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival For more in the 2006 Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival series, click here.
TV to Screen: For more in the TV to Screen series, click here.
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USA
30-Sep-2005 (PG-13)
DVD: 20-Dec-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
N/A
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