If there were justice in the world of movie box office receipts, Serenity would make much more than Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (currently at $380 million in the U.S. alone) because it is a much better movie. That won’t happen, of course, but if you like smart, funny, action-packed science fiction, you need to help Serenity do well at the box office so Hollywood will make more like it. I saw it for free last night — I’ll be paying to see it again.
Serenity is a continuation of Joss Whedon’s short-lived TV series Firefly, but you don’t need to have watched the TV series in order to understand what’s going on. But in case you want a little background…
The Setting: It’s 500 years in the future. Humanity has colonized a distant solar system, terraforming (making them earth-like) a bunch of planets and moons. The central worlds are highly populated and rich, while the outer worlds tend to have sparsely populated frontier towns. Several years earlier, the Alliance that rules the central worlds used its military power to achieve “Unification,” defeating the Independents of the frontier worlds.
The Crew: Mal is the owner and captain of Serenity, a small interplanetary cargo ship. He fought in the war against the Alliance, but now he makes a living by hauling cargo, smuggling, and occasionally stealing from Alliance targets. Zoe is Mal’s second-in-command — she fought alongside Mal during the war. Wash is the pilot, and he’s married to Zoe. Jayne is mainly muscle (including his head.) Kaylee is the engineer. Simon is the doctor.
And River is Simon’s brilliant but mentally unstable sister. It is on River that the main plot hinges — she’s been the subject of experiments by Alliance scientists, and they want her back (or dead).
The plot is filled with action and suspense, and the special effects are well done. The dialogue is snappy and often funny (as is usual for a Joss Whedon work), but that doesn’t mean it’s a comedy — there are some very sad moments as well.
So go see Serenity. It’s very shiny.
(Note: The characters in Serenity use the word “shiny” in approximately the way we tend to used the word “cool.” It’s just a tiny touch to make the dialogue seem less “here and now.” Another thing they’ve done, for which I’m grateful, is that the characters generally do their swearing in Chinese instead of English. Since I don’t know Chinese, the swearing passes right over my head.)