Here's my 50th Movie Review!
Time to have a look back at Joss Whedon' film debut, the now cult SERENITY movie!
Want more Jess Whedon cult classics, check these previous reviews!
Movie: Serenity
Directed by Joss Whedon
Release date 2005
Genre Scifi/ Space western adventure
Country USA
Fans demanded it... and we got it.
Firefly is a now defunct cult classic scifi series from the mind of writer/director Joss Whedon. The original TV Show ran in 2002 on Fox and was originally canceled mid-season after a chaotic run .(episodes aired in a random order, the schedule was irregular..)
Anyways, the TV series got released pretty fast on DVD afterwards, where it quickly go noticed and started building a fandom unlike anything you'd ever seen.
Whedon tried to get the show back on the air on other networks, but wasn't able to reach a deal. After a while, he tried to sell it as a film instead. Thanks to the enormous fan support and very impressive DVD sales, he was able to reach a settlement with Universal who bought the franchise back from Fox.
Fans made it possible. Firefly was going to be back as a feature-length movie. A spin-off of sorts.
Would it continue or conclude the series?
The movie takes place about ~6 months after the end of the show.
The movie opens with some fractured scenes, changing from a situation to another, after what we are quickly (re)introduced to the crew of the Serenity, a Firefly-class spaceship. We are in the 26th century. Humanity has long left an overpopulated planet Earth and colonized space. There has been a war, the Unification War.
Our main character, Captain Malcolm Reynolds fought on the "losing" side. He now smuggles stuff and deals in shady business to keep the Serenity afloat. With his crew they often end up on the run from The Alliance, the intergalactic system than administrates the open space.
You see, River Tam was experimented on by The Alliance. She was then saved by her brother Simon and are now part of the crew of the Serenity.
But she now appears to be developing telepathic powers and the secrets of The Alliance are coming back to haunt our crew. And an assassin is after them.
The crew of the Firefly ship end up having to cross over a region where Reavers ships lies. And you don't want to find Reavers, hollow dangerous humans that have lost any sign of humanity.
On the paper, it doesn't sound that extraordinary or interesting. But Joss Whedon manages to make it work. The story is great thanks to the great characterization, Whedon is after all a great writer first. He is able to make you invested in his world in so little time.
The movie lies before anything on the shoulders of the fantastic cast. And even if time had passed, you can't deny there's a great chemistry between these guys. Nathan Fillion as Captain Mal is very charismatic. His Captain Malcolm takes a lot more from Indiana Jones than your usual scifi spaceship captains. Next on this film is Summer Glau as River. On the show she never got much to do besides being central to some stories. Here she finally gets to fight and her experience as a dancer even shows through. Her fight scene is fantastically choreographed and one of the most memorable scenes.
Then there's all the others. Jayne is played by the always awesome Adam Baldwin, he provides the muscle of the crew. He plays a more comedic relief role in the film than on the show. There's also Gina Torres as Zoe, Alan Tudyk as the Serenity pilot Wash, the lovely Jewel Staite as the engineer Kaylee. The other members of the crew don't get to shine as much, but it's understandable. It's a movie and there's so little time to do so much.
The film keeps things fresh and moving forward. It's not just a redo of the show.
Firefly/Serenity's always been its very own thing, showing its unique vision of the future. Nothing like you've seen in Star Wars/Star Trek/Stargate and other Star-titled shows.
This is a very unique old west-fashioned science fiction. It draws a lot from Eastern cultures as well as a 19th Century tone. No laser beams, but more traditional firearms instead. The space-setting is much more of a background element than anything else really.
The movie is a fast paced adventure. It looks great, particularly the colors and the photography. Which just goes to prove what Buffy creator Joss Whedon could achieve given proper time and budget.
The fantastic musical score was composed by David Newman, instead of series composer Greg Edmonson. But it draws a lot from it and honors it in its own way. More epic, which is appropriate for a film.
Overall, a very unique fascinating movie. The short lived series was given a new life through this movie!
This great series ended way too soon. And it was really something getting this fan favorite series brought back from cancelation.. with a movie!
I always said it was Fox' faults we got this gem taken out - not even mentioning the poor ratings due to the unfair uneven episodes aired.
The film is definitively a bit darker than the show. But it was a logical continuation of the series. It is very interesting and will no doubt please both fans and newcomers alike. It perfectly stands on its own and was no doubt the introduction to the series for a lot of people. Many of us long time fans wish we'd gotten more out of it, perhaps another film or even a second series. Oh, well...
I give it:
2.5 / 3 UFOs!
No comments:
Post a Comment