Serenity

You have to say this for Joss Whedon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel), the man does not shy away from big themes. Nor does he shy away from flawed, complex characters. These two things combined are what make Serenity, even with the flaws it does have, the best science fiction film to come along in the past five years.

Based in the space-going Western, complete with horses, guns, and frontier justice, universe Whedon created for the TV series Firefly, Serenity picks up slightly past where the show left off with the crew of the firefly-class transport Serenity on the run from the Alliance, picking up odd jobs, both legal and not so legal, along the way. What makes this broken down ship captained by Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) such a hot property is the presence of River Tam (Summer Glau), a prodigy freed from a secret government training facility by her brother Dr. Simon Tam (Sean Maher). Exhibiting more than enough classic signs of paranoid schizophrenia to convince the sometimes-simple folk of the outer rim planets she’s “touched,” River holds a secret that the Alliance can’t afford to have exposed. Pursued by The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the crew of the Serenity are forced to the very edge of the known galaxy to unlock the mystery of River’s training and find the key to both her sanity and their own salvation.

From a design that I wouldn’t be surprised to find came from Joss Whedon’s own hand (he wrote and directed the film, and wrote the TV series’ theme music), the Serenity physically resembles a firefly and is both a ship and a home for Reynolds and his crew. First mate Zoe (Gina Torres) served with Reynolds in the war against the Alliance in what we can only gather from the film (and know from the show) was the pivotal defeat for the Independence, the battle of Serenity Valley. The rest of the crew – Jayne (Adam Baldwin), an at-times unreliable lunkhead, Wash (Alan Tudyk), pilot extraordinaire and Zoe’s husband, Kaylee (Jewel Staite), a charming optimist who has a way with engines – balance Mal and Zoe’s battle-hardened focus.

Among its flaws this movie by itself doesn’t adequately explain the pivotal nature of the other two members of the Serenity “family,” the preacher Shepard Book (Ron Glass) who provides the friction for Mal’s pragmatism and the companion Inara (Morena Baccarin) who irritatingly reminds him that he’s human.

This movie’s other flaw is that it feels rushed, as if Whedon were hurrying to tell the story, and sketch out the big themes of trust, belief, desire, will, aspiration, and place, before The Powers That Be pull the rug out from under the film the same way they tanked the more excellent television show from which this movie sprang. Firefly had a leisurely pace that spoke to both the serial nature of the traditional Western and of life. After all, you don’t learn about a man’s truest self right after you first meet him, do you?

With many episodes and many hours, Whedon and his team had time to stretch, to think, to make the characters more human and less pre-packaged then they appear here. And whether it was Whedon’s choice or a studio dictate, deemphasizing the baldness of the mix of Western and science fiction was a mistake that cuts a small chunk out of the heart of this story. I’m not sure whether to recommend seeing the TV show before you see this movie but I’d definitely recommend seeing both.

For the guts and grace to tackle the big themes, swearing in Chinese patois (don’t ask, it works…trust me), making $40M look like $100M, and for entertaining without treating me like I’m an idiot, even with its flaws I have to give Serenity 4.5 out of 5.

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