Critter's Cave

This is another movie, like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where one’s opinion about the movie will depend on one’s familiarity with the source material – in this case, the failed Fox Television show Firefly.

Those familiar with the TV series will no doubt be familiar with it’s long, strange trip to the silver screen. Created by Joss Whedon, the same person who brought us the very successful Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel, it was given a lousy time slot by Fox, had it’s episode order scrambled by the network, then ultimately cancelled before all the episodes in the can were shown. It gained new life when sales of the season compilation DVD soared beyond executive’s expectations and a movie was greenlighted. This is that movie.
Those unfamiliar with the series – especially those episodes that did not air – will have a little bit of a hard time understanding some of the interpersonal dynamics of this motley crew. Luckily these dynamics don’t affect the story too much except for a couple of specific cases where the unfamiliarity with the series will reduce those scenes’ emotional impact a great deal.
However, for those that were fans of the series, Serenity resolves several questions that were left hanging when the series was cancelled, chief among them the mystery surrounding their seemingly-mentally disturbed patient River Tam and her brother Simon.
Whedon’s attempt to tie up all the loose ends of the series in a 120-minute movie unfortunately makes the movie feel rushed, and several of the characters that were so wonderful on the series are not given enough screen time to show those qualities off.
However, the world that Whedon created for Serenity is still as unique and intriguing as it was in the series. The Serenity of the title is a ship captained by Malcom ‘Mal’ Reynolds who is a former Browncoat. Browncoats were rebels against the ruling Alliance who failed in their quest for independence. Now working in the lawless Border Worlds, Mal is not really a smuggler, just someone who isn’t too picky about what he transports, and doesn’t ask too many questions of his customers. He has picked up a passenger River Tam (Summer Glau) and her brother Simon (Sean Maher). They are on the run from the Alliance, but no one, even River or Simon knows exactly why the government wants her so bad. Mal’s crew are all unique, from his second-in-command during the rebellion Zoe (Gina Torres) to his Hawaian-shirt-wearing, Plastic-dinosaur collecting navigator Hob Washburn (Alan Tudyk). Their engineer is a precocious young woman Kaylee (Jewel Staite) and his gun-toting merc is a man named Jayne (Adam Baldwin). As in the series, the combination of 60’s western and 70’s sci-fi really makes “The Final Frontier” feel just like a lawless frontier from the 1870s or 80s. The quirk of Chinese culture being mixed in (the characters curse in Chinese) as well really sets it apart from other science fiction worlds we may be used to.
The special effects are excellent, and the space-based battle scenes are some of the most realistic and dynamic of any other science fiction film, including the opening sequence from Revenge of the Sith. There were a few shots, mainly “beauty” shots of Serenity that had a real CG feel to it, but otherwise the effects were outstanding.
Unfortunately, the world may feel the same and the FX may be well beyond the series’ FX, the plot ultimately lets us down a bit. The movie is fun, but if you’re not familiar with the series you probably won’t enjoy it as much as a Firefly fan will. And if you are a Firefly fan, you will be glad they resolved the mysteries raised in the series, but disappointed in some of the characters outcomes. I give it 4 out of 5 stars for Firefly fans and 3 out 5 for non-fans.