Serenity

Last night Robyn and I went to see the new Joss Whedon movie, Serenity, which is a spin off from his much loved yet short lived TV series Firefly, and I for one couldn’t be happier…

Now I’ll admit to not really knowing much about the show til I got the DVD set back in February of 2004, I remembered seeing previews for it on Fox and things like that while in Boston but back in the UK it didn’t start showing there for almost a year and I only saw maybe half an episode. So when I revisited the entire series, firstly via Netflix then buying the DVD’s outright, I completely fell in love with it and when the movie was announced, well I had to be there opening night, if only to prove my geekdom more than anything.

I’ll try not to give much away, but this is set some six or so months after the last Firefly episode “Objects in Space” and The Alliance is still after River Tam (Summer Glau) and her brother Simon Tam (Sean Maher), but when Serenity’s captain Mal Reynods (Nathan Fillion) takes her on a job and the Reavers show up, Simon sees this as one risk too much and says they will leave the ship at next port of call, meanwhile an unnamed member of The Alliance is tracking the Tams and Serenity in an attempt to return River the a facility known as The Academy. After leaving the ship River finds herself in a bar where an advert on a screen triggers *something* and her conditioning is revealed, as well as something hidden deep inside her subconscious that could threaten The Alliance…

I went in hoping it would be like a 2 hour episode of the show, but it was so much more involving, it now makes me think that it always should have belonged on the big screen, this had enough moments and sweeping visuals to rival anything that came out of LucasFilms in the last 30 years. Usually movies like this involving an ensemble cast (like Star Trek for instance) can get bogged down with far too many sub-plots just so everyone can get screen time, not this one… It’s direct and to the point… River knows a dark secret and The Alliance want to stop that secret getting out, and it’s 2 hours of action and suspence that wraps it all up… Plus it has kickass battle sequences, and enough of the dry wit that made Firefly so endearing, I dont know who gets the best lines, Mal, Jayne or Wash… They are all great.

I hope this is a success so more movies in the franchise can get made, shame they will be a few crew members short, that is the one thing that surprised me… Highly recommended, even if you havent seen the whole of Firefly, but it might help…