Review of Serenity (2015) by Ben L — 03 Mar 2015

There's no doubt about it, I love Serenity. In fact I enjoyed the movie a lot on my first viewing, knowing nothing about the TV series. I then went back and watched the series and loved the movie even more. I'm willing to admit that I am infatuated with these characters, and I might have been willing to follow them on any adventure. However I think the structure of this film is very strong. It does an excellent job from the beginning at setting up the characters' personalities and motivations. Even when I hadn't watched the series before, I still followed who everyone was and cared about what would happen to them. The only problem with making a film out of Firefly is that you don't get quite as much time to develop every character when you have 9 heroes carried over from the series. As a result there are some people who aren't given as much screen time, and I do wish I could spend more time with them, but I think Joss Whedon did an excellent job paring it down to the character moments that were most essential to telling the story. The addition of Chiwetel Ejiofor as an antagonist is simply amazing. He is so suave, and actually someone I find myself liking despite his evil actions. The Operative is a brilliant contrast to Mal and crew because they are so laid back and he is all business.

What I love most about Serenity is the brilliant way it blends genres. There's some great sci-fi elements to the story, then there are superb action scenes, and throughout there is a fair amount of comedy. I particularly like how they poke fun at the common tropes of action films with lines like "Remember, if anything happens to me, or you don't hear from me within the hour...you take this ship and you come and you rescue me." It's just enough to wink at the audience and tell us that they understand our expectations, but these characters aren't your classic movie heroes. The story is expertly crafted, and keeps you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. It's interesting how they weave some flashbacks into the story in logical ways, so we can see some of the back-story without having to sit through lots of exposition. Malcolm Reynolds is like a modern-day Han Solo and it's just a delight to see Nathan Fillion bring him to life in a film. I honestly don't know what else to say. I love every beat of this movie, and even though I just finished watching it, I want to go back and watch it again from the beginning. Frankly, this is one of my favorite films of all time.