The local theatre just got “Serenity”. I had been hoping to see it sooner, because of the terrific reviews and great word-of-mouth. I have never seen “Firefly”, nor “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” for that matter. I finally saw “Serenity” tonight.
It was rather bad.
It wasn’t terrible. And the first 10 or 15 minutes made for a great opening with wonderful promise. But the film quickly fell apart into clichés and more cheese than you’d find in Wisconsin. The ending, when the Operative has a sudden change of heart so that the majority of the crew survives, did not convince me at all and seemed too pat.
I think this movie was definitely made for fans of “Firefly”. This is great for those fans. I, however, found that I couldn’t work up much sympathy for most of the characters. When Wash died, it seemed to me to be just another action-movie moment where a character dies and someone is sad about them for a second or two then kicks ass to avenge them. He had, what, a half-dozen lines the whole movie? I didn’t hate him or anything, but I certainly wasn’t given any real reason to like him either.
Mal - The captain was pretty cool, but I kept thinking, “There’s only one Han, dude, and there ain’t no wookie by your side. Stop trying.” I liked him the best overall though.
River - Hokey, hokey hokey! She’s 100 lbs or less and can toss people around like rag dolls? I was told that “Firefly” was relatively accurate when it came to science, but somehow the laws regarding mass of objects seem to have been revoked. Plus, I’ve always hated the cliché of the super-duper warrior dude(ette) who can take down dozens of people without breaking a sweat. This sometimes works in a fantasy setting like “Star Wars” or “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, but otherwise it’s just cheesy. (And sometimes when it’s cheesy it at least looks cool, but there wasn’t anything special about the fight scenes in “Serenity”.)
Simon - After the opening bits, he really didn’t have much to do. I liked the little I saw of him, but there really wasn’t much insight into his character other than that he wants to protect his sister. He’s mostly a blank to me.
Jayne - He had some good lines. And some bad ones. I kinda liked him overall.
The engineering/mechanic chick - I get it. You want to get boned. Get over it. Quite annoying.
Wash’s wife - I know she has/had a husband and she’s a soldier. That’s it.
Book - I know he’s old and apparantly religious. I assume that he has helped the Serenity crew on previous occassions. His death was, of course, the “I’ll stay alive just long enough to give final advice” cliché. Plus, while I don’t enjoy seeing old people die, there wasn’t anything I knew about this old person that made it particularly tragic.
The Operative - Good character, up until the end. I was sort of hoping he’d get a victory of sorts by failing to stop the transmission but killing or capturing the remaining crew.
Mr. Universe - Forget Wisconsin, France doesn’t have cheese this cheesy. The ultimate “hacker” archetype cliché. I really wish that “Hackers” wasn’t the most convincing portrayal of hacking and hackers that I’ve seen on film. It just seems wrong somehow.
That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure I’m missing somebody.
Things I liked: While some of the lines fell flat, some were great. My favorite was Mal’s, “Well, uh, you can’t!” It was a great delivery. And of course, “Am … am I talking to Miranda now?” and the ensuing look.
Also, the long shot through the ship, showing off the various rooms and areas. This I enjoyed quite a bit. In fact, I wish I’d gotten to see more of the ship from the inside. It looked like the place people really could live in. (As opposed to the clinical look of Star Trek.)
The plot moved along briskly, which was a double-edged sword. Since I barely knew who these people were, it wasn’t always clear to me sometimes why they were doing what they were doing. On the other hand, I didn’t really have time to think about that.
All in all, I’d give it a C.
Short version: they like to torture you first.