Serenity
As a major fan of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and therefore given to praising the very earth that Joss Whedon steps upon, I'm a little biased in favour of Serenity. Slavish fandom asides, it's not unreasonable to say that his writing for Buffy has generally helped to raise the level of genre television over the last decade - the people behind the new Doctor Who series admit openly that they owe a debt to the vampire slayer. Added to that is the fact/popular opinion that the Buffy episodes directed by Whedon tend to be among the show's best.
With Serenity being his debut as a big screen writer-director here's a chance finally to see the qualities that Whedon has brought to the small screen realised in the cinema. He has written for the screen before, but bad things tended to happen like other writers speeding off with the credit, or French directors ruining his scripts. Given how the quality of moviemaking has lately slipped into a commercially-driven cesspit of unimaginative, derivate, remakes, sequels and knock-offs, we can only hope that Hollywood at large takes a tip or two from Whedon as the TV-making community has.
It's been a popular comment in reviews for Serenity that George Lucas could have taken a leaf from Whedon's book - or preferably the whole damn thing - while putting together his turgid and often idiotic ("Noooooooooooooooo!") Star Wars prequels. I don't think Lucas is the only Hollywood bigwig who has assumed that if people are presented with spectacle they will be oblivious to the quality, or lack thereof, of the writing.
There is a slight irony in that Whedon's big screen break came virtue of a small screen snub. Firefly - the show that Serenity is, effectively, a sequel to - was cancelled by Fox after just a dozen episodes (the morons at Fox can also take credit for cancelling another excellent show, Wonderfalls, but that's another story). In a turnaround which still has many in the grip of wide-eyed wonderment, Whedon refused to give up and managed to get a feature film greenlit. He brought the original cast along, reworked his storyline for Firefly's second season (which reveals some key background to one of the main characters, as well as some major events of galactic proportions - not surprising he didn't want to let it lie) and now we have Serenity.
That's a rather long winded introduction to a review that doesn't really have much more to say than: Serenity is excellent, go and see it!
There are some criticisms levelled at the film, revolving around its small screen origins, which complain that it still looks like a TV show. It does, but it has to be said that most TV shows these days look pretty damn good, and in this case I don't mind if the effects budget is a little tight when the script is so good. I think he made it on something like a tenth of the budget of Revenge Of The Sith, and it's at least ten times more rewarding, ten times less tedious, etc.
If I did have to pick a personal criticism it's that Gina Torres' second-in-command is a little underused, and doesn't seem to have much more to do than be a kickass chick in space. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but when Whedon has taken care to make sure the audience gets to know every other character it's a bit of a sore point. Maybe there's some deleted scenes lined up for the DVD though.
Another downer is the arbitrary killing off of one of the main characters near the end. It provided a minor emotional jolt, but seemed clear that it was only written in to make sure that we viewers knew that people could really die here. Sure enough the next scene had me convinced that almost the entire rest of the crew were going to be killed off, but I'm not sure if an arbitrary character death was needed for that effect.
There's also an obvious comparison to Buffy. Whedon has largely borrowed his own Buffy backstory about a group of men who create a girl with superpowers so they can send her off to do their killing. It doesn't really make the film any worse, but with Whedon's next film being Wonder Woman, you begin to wonder (ha ha) if stories about women with super powers are all he can write lately.
There is plenty that's good though.
Along with an opening that trips you up at least three or four times (you think one thing is happening, then you realise something totally different is happening, and so on) Whedon has noted down almost every popular cliche from action and sci-fi movies and worked out how to turn it into something original. These are some of the best lines in the movie, so I won't repeat them here - instead just go and see it!
Also, as mentioned, by the end of the film the audience is familiar with virtually every character. Gina Torres aside, there are no characters who merely provide background, everyone has their part to play.
And the acting is terrific. Chiwetel Ejiofor was excellent, but he generally is, and is a seasoned screen actor. The surprise is how good the TV cast is. All too often TV sci-fi shows have too much ham on screen - this is partially due to the lack of rehearsal time, but also due to the fact that some of these people just plain can't act. This doesn't seem to be the case in Serenity. Everyone holds their own on that big screen, and if Nathan Fillion doesn't get some juicy roles in the next year then Hollywood should just give up now.
Finally, in case you missed it the first time - Serenity is excellent, go and see it!
Jimmy January 29, 2006 - 11:31
Ok, so I've seen the series and it was also truely awesome. Once again Joss proves his skills as a writer can provide pure one-two-combo laughs and action (not necessarily in that order) at a fair price of about twenty three-a-penny if you pay ?17.99 for the series on DVD.
Although the series, Firefly, and the movie, Serenity, can be viewed individually when you see the two together you begin to get a deeper feeling for the characters and the storyline yanks ever harder at your strings of intrigue.
After watching the series I found myself feeling rather dissapointed. How could they axe such a good show?
This is clearly superior to both Buffy and Angel and it sits alone in a league of its own when compared to other sci-fi series.
Im sure there's some kind of revive Firefly project out there and maybe buying the series and movie will show some kind of support. Do your bit!