My spoiler-free assessment of Serenity since its release in cinemas here in Britain:
I’m honestly surprised that no-one has brought up Serenity up to now… and the only reason for that is because not nearly enough people are going to see it! I’d highly recommend that you rectify this deficiency and speed to the cinema post-haste, because if there’s one science-fiction film that deserves to be a success this year, it is most definitely the sublime Serenity.
We all know who Joss Whedon - most famous for Buffy the Vampire Slayer - is. Whilst both that and Angel won him great praise, another of his franchises, Firefly (what can be loosely described as a “space western”), was less successful. This wasn’t for a lack of quality on the programme’s part - it received critical acclaim - but rather the cold feet of executives at Fox Television who panicked when the show didn’t shoot straight to the top of the charts within five minutes. Ever since then, Whedon has been labouring painstakingly and relentlessly to revive Firefly, and the end result that is Serenity is nothing less than a labour of love, and that shines through in a truly sterling production.
Whilst Serenity is a continuation of the Firefly storyline, newcomers need not fear of being hurled into the deep end - the backstory is painlessly dispensed with inside of a couple of minutes, and rather than have a dull Mister Exposition droning on, it’s elegantly woven into the thread of the narrative itself. A superbly-constructed tracking shot of the chief protagonist, Malcolm (Mal) Reynolds walking through his ship as the crew prepare for a less than smooth landing establishes the crew within the next three or four, so you’re immediately up to speed with all the salient details.
This superior sense of refinement to filmmaking continues as Serenity unfolds. The villains are compelling, whether it be the animalistic savagery of the feral Reavers or the cold politeness of The Operative (who, unlike most antagonists, isn’t self-serving or psychotic but a genuine believer in his mission - and competent to boot!). The action sequences are also vicious, tense and varied, ranging from good ol’ fashioned manly brawls and barnstormin’ chases to a slinky elastic assassin ducking, diving, weaving, rolling, flipping and kicking entire mobs into submission in an eye-wateringly speedy display of astonishing gymnastic prowess. The big space battle isn’t just a humdrum five minutes where two groups of CGI-polished polygons sling special effects at each other, but a rip-roaring and furious affair as the camera spins, ducks, screams, twists, barrels and careers through a bewildering and incandescent firestorm with exhilarating speed (if anything, it’s too quick - it’s difficult to focus on, and I wouldn’t have minded a couple of wide-screen shots in order to appreciate the scale of it. That’s not to detract from it being gripping as it is, though). Whilst there is one rather tall section when Mal gets skewered but fights on as if someone’s just nicked him, these sequences also succeed in feeling like genuine combat, not merely as a vehicle for the Hero to show how indestructible he is.
That’s an important distinction to make, because a place where Serenity excels is characterisation. Despite Serenity having a healthy dose of action-adventure, the cast isn’t merely a cipher to unlock an SFXtravagaza, but each of them have definite personalities, with their own genuinely palpable emotions, ideas, ambitions and motivations, all painted through their speech, dress, interactions, and even their accents and the doodads they put up in their quarters! Pleasingly, it also dabbles in that underused concept of the anti-hero.
One unfortunate problem, though, is the size of the cast. With ten named characters at the fore, it’s impossible to flesh all of them out in exhaustive detail in 119 minutes, which is why when drastic measures are taken at a couple of sections it might only cause an emotional frisson in the fans of the original Firefly who already know the cast well. Nonetheless, the superior script allows even those other characters who spend more time on the sidelines than the main core of the Serenity’s crew to feel like complete humans, their limited lines still encapsulating them as genuine people.
Whilst the script is highlighted, I can say that it is another positive factor that burnished Serenity. It is very tight and focused, dispensing with sub-plots to tell one concentrated tale. Whether that’s a preferable thing or not is a matter of opinion, but it succeeded in keeping my attention and was well-paced, jetting from one place to another to keep up a sense of progress and throwing in a radical plot-twist along the way that shocks and disturbs marvellously. The ending is left open - Serenity is intended to be the first instalment in a trilogy - but the adventure within is purely self-contained and reaches its own climax and denouement. It’s also a lively affair, not only with the slang and vernacular bandied about in the dialogue, but also through the injection of humour. Nothing is kidney-rupturingly hilarious (although you wouldn’t expect it to be - it isn’t a comedy), but when the whole audience was guffawing at several points in the film you appreciated just how well-balanced Serenity is.
Serenity deserves to succeed. Not only has Joss Whedon sweated blood over it, but his sponsors, Universal, have also willingly taken a risk over something that might not necessarily rake in the ticket-dollars - and we don’t want film studios to be scared off non-blockbusters any more! But it’s wrong to buy a ticket to this film as a favour for either of those two bodies - do it as a favour for yourself. Serenity is a marvellous film which has a soul and heart as well as all of the modern gubbins we expect these days, and an enriching thing to watch. 