Fox Can't Take the Sky From Me!
Now Playing: Serenity (2005, d. Joss Whedon)
Reviewer’s note: Since every man, woman and child with even a passing interest has no doubt already seen Serenity at one of its myriad advance screenings, this doesn’t necessarily qualify as a scoop. Nonetheless, I was able to see it before its official theatrical opening, so I guess that counts for something. As any discussion of this film seems to be framed by the user’s feelings on the past works of its creator, I’ll lay it out briefly before I begin the review in earnest. I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Joss Whedon fan club, though I think he’s quite talented. I thought the Buffy TV series was entertaining, but certainly not the apex of broadcast drama that some seem to feel it is, and I’ve never seen a complete episode of Angel. His writing for film has had a spotty track record: one great script (Toy Story), and a couple of interesting but ultimately flawed ones (Alien: Resurrection, Titan AE). I tried an episode of Firefly, the series upon which Serenity is based, when it was originally airing on Fox, but didn’t get into it for the same reason that it suffered an untimely cancellation: the network’s monkeying with the episode sequence made it impossible to get into Whedon’s impressively detailed universe. Still, enough people proselytized to me about its pleasures that I resolved to give it another chance on DVD. However, I wanted to see the film from the point of view of a non-fan, so I tried to wait to watch the series. A temporary Netflix drought and a persistent sci-fi yen conspired against my best-laid plans, however, and I popped the series pilot in my DVD player. I was an instant convert; Whedon’s nicely drawn characters and trademark snappy dialogue combined with familiar western-themed plots and solid ensemble acting to create a wonderfully addictive television experience. Like the legions of Whedonites that convinced Universal to pick up the movie rights, I began to anticipate Serenity as a chance to spend a little more time with the characters to which I had become attached over the course of series’ fifteen hours. With Whedon writing and directing, there was no chance the film would fail to deliver on that count. The big question on everyone’s mind (not least the studio plants in my row at the screening who kept asking everyone what they liked about the show) is: Will it play to the unconverted?

The answer is yet to be determined. My feeling is that it will, thanks to the familiarity of the tropes and some good action and special effects, but that newcomers will miss much of the nuance that made the series memorable to begin with. If you hadn’t seen the series, you wouldn’t know that Shepherd Book (Ron Glass, in fine voice and cornrows) was ever a member of Serenity’s crew, or that Inara Serra (the lovely Morena Baccarin) is a Companion—-a well-educated concubine-for-hire that enjoys the exalted position of a geisha in the futuristic world of the film. Her relationship with Captain Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), who was smitten with her but unable to accept her profession, formed much of the romantic tension of the series. Do you need to know these things to enjoy the movie? No, but without those layers of context, the feature may seem like just another sci-fi western, albeit one with great dialogue and really likeable characters.

Newcomers get a tightly-constructed introduction to the world of Firefly. Sometime in the future, we’re told in the film’s intro, Earth’s population used up the planet’s resources and set off into the galaxy to claim new homes. As civilization spread out, a central government emerged to provide order to the core worlds. Settlers on the edge of civilization rebelled against this authority, and a bloody civil war ensued. On the losing end were the rebels, or Browncoats, with whom Reynolds served. In the aftermath, he and his crew are able to eke out a living through petty crime and chartered transport; the latter is how the crew came to include fugitives Dr. Simon Tam (Sean Maher) and his enigmatic and possibly insane teenage sister River (Summer Glau), who Simon rescued from some sort of mysterious MK-Ultra style government mind-control experiment. Just what it was and why River was selected was clearly meant to be a mystery unraveled over the course of the series, but Whedon makes this the focus of the movie, answering most of the lingering questions. A top-secret, unnamed Operative (Chiwetel Ojiofor) has been dispatched to recover River by any means necessary, and as Reynolds and crew try to stop him, they begin to solve the mystery of their strange and dangerous passenger.

In his first directorial effort for the big screen, Whedon demonstrates an extremely able touch with his actors (chemistry developed over a year of working together no doubt helps), and, more surprisingly, fairly decent cinematographic instincts—not that anyone’s going to mistake him for Kubrick, but his frames are decent enough. The movie’s television roots show in the plotting, however. There are no subplots, just a direct line of action from beginning to end. It’s not enough to do the movie in, though—-the ride is thrilling enough that we aren’t looking for detours during the course of the film. In retrospect, though, it seems like Whedon may have sacrificed an opportunity to broaden and deepen his ‘verse to provide something the studio felt like it could sell.

Nitpicks aside, Serenity is one hell of a good time. Whedon and crew get the tone just right, serious when it should be but never so much that it gets pompous (Star Wars prequels, I’m looking at you). I can’t think of a serious sci-fi film with as many genuine laughs that don’t rely on in-jokes (ahem, Star Trek: The Next Generation films). Whedon’s trademark dialogue walks the line between witty and precious, and almost always stays on the right side. There are genuine scares, great effects, and believable action. The acting is solid throughout, especially from Ojiofor and Fillion, but even from series favorites Alan Tudyk (as wisecracking ship’s pilot Wash) and Adam Baldwin (channeling Warren Oates as grumpy hired muscle Jayne Cobb), who have been relegated to diminished roles in the feature. Best of all, Whedon isn’t afraid to make his universe dangerous. He risks alienating the rabid fan base with the fates of some of the characters, but he’s apparently paid attention to his westerns—-in just about all of the best ones, not all of the characters we care about make it to the end of the trail. And in these franchise-happy, merchandising-driven times, one has to respect a creator putting his babies in situations where some or all of them may not make it to the end. There are no dream sequences, no Deus-ex-machina moments, and it’s saying something that I’ve been conditioned to assume these cop-outs are coming.

I left the screening with a big grin on my face, knowing that I had seen a space opera the likes of which are all too rare these days. The fan in me may have subdued the critic, but I don’t think that’s the case. After all, I’ve loved Star Trek since I was four years old, but no amount of irrational nostalgia could convince me that Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier or Star Trek: Insurrection were good movies by any stretch of the imagination. I think if the public gives Serenity a chance, the film will do well at the box office. And the fan in me hopes that happens, just on the chance that success will warrant a sequel, and I’ll get to spend another couple of hours with the characters I’ve grown to love.