Based on the TV show Firefly (which I will now have to catch sometime, dammit), Joss Whedon’s new Serenity not only rises above most TV to big screen adaptations, it’s also quite a lot better than most big SciFi releases.
The crew of the spaceship Serenity has definitely seen better times. Led by Captain Malcolm Reynolds, an embittered veteran, they try to scrape by in the lawless fringes of civilization while keeping a beautiful telepath (who they rescued from a research facility) and her brother away from the evil empire stand-in, the Alliance. After narrowly escaping alive from a bank robbery gone awry, they must contend with a sociopath Alliance operative sent to retrieve their charge, dodge a horde of cannibal berserkers, and solve the mystery posed by the girl they rescued- which, as these things tend to do, may be of dire importance.
The complex character dynamics are effortlessly, and masterfully introduced, as are the broad strokes of the setting. One of the few complaints that can be levied against the film is that too much material is trotted out just for the series fans in the early going, but since all those elements tie into events later on, that’s really moot point. There is a constant vein of understated humor that runs throughout the film even at its grimmest moments. And things do get quite grim- for a space opera, (one based on a TV show, no less) there are a lot of moral grey areas, genuinely hard choices made and one exquisitely ruthless scene that had me smiling all the way to the conclusion.
The science part is a bit iffy, but no worse than, say, Star Wars. And nitpicking about, say, whether a planet can be successfully blockaded would completely miss the point. The movie is character focused through and through, and in that respect it succeeds admirably. Both individual characters and the relationships between them are carefully rendered, entertaining, and faithful to themselves. It’s a treat aurally as well: the soundtrack is good enough to own, and the dialog not only succeeds in portraying an alien vernacular (think western-punk), but also a very particular cadence that, when you get used to it, is a pleasure to listen to. Outstanding stuff.