Film Review: Serenity directed by Joss Whedon

Serenity

Overall Rating: 3.5 / 5

Picking up where the TV show Firefly left off, Serenity takes us back into the distant future that Joss Whedon created. The basis is the humans ravaged earth, then terra-formed new planets to sustain us. The government of the Alliance "colonized" the outer planets that were independent. As with any sci-fi genre (and probably real life) the government always has the nasty wing that does shit straight out of horror movies. In Firefly and Serenity, that includes taking people of extraordinary mental ability, shoving needles in their brains, and turning them into weapons. So far, we're about on par with the genre I'd say.

Serenity start off in a classroom where the teacher is giving a lesson on the Alliance then swiftly stabs a student in the face. While this is mostly how I felt in school, I wasn't actually expecting to see that on screen. Then we find out this is a dream while River, our resident genius and lab rat, is strapped to a chair with needles in her brain. Simon, her brother, manages to help her escape but we find what we're watching is actually a recorded hologram of the event. A very attractive, very calm guy with lots of Parliament clearance comes in like a gentleman, talks like a gentleman, and kills almost everyone in the room.

We're not 10 minutes into the movie yet and I'm entirely freaked out. 

My sanity, or serenity if you will, is restored by the Firefly and everyone's favorite crew coming on screen. It's accompanied by a modified version of the theme song, thankfully without the goram lyrics. Of course, Serenity is in the middle of malfunctioning. It's less unusual than you'd think. We also have the Captain fighting with Simon about taking his sister on a job. Again, less unusual than you'd think though I was surprised how insistent Mal, the Captain, was that Simon and River weren't part of his crew. After the first season of Firefly I'd have thought that maybe he'd be a little less resistant to the idea. 

So Mal, Zoe, Jayne, and River run off to be bank robbers, intending to runn off with some money marked to go to the Alliance. It's all fun and crime until River violently reacts to an innocent woman getting slashed to hell outside. I'm freaked out again. But so is everyone else because the Reavers have come. Reavers are deranged and violent gangs of psychos that cruise around the outer planets robbing and raping. They're evil space Vikings, and they've rudely interrupted Mal haggling with the vault guard over where he should shoot him to make it look like he struggled.

Gina Torres as Zoe during bank robbery.

Mal is our classic hero bad-guy. Yeah he steals and runs illegal operations for money, but he's still gold at heart. This time, he's making sure he can get away with the money while he orchestrates all the hostages inside the bank to stay safe from Reavers. We like Mal. When one of the hostages jumps on their getaway car, Mal pushes him off. He is swiftly dragged away by Reavers. Mal shoots the hostage. This is part of what makes him the bad guy, yet living through Reavers would be far worse. It's a cruel kindness and one of the hallmark traits that Whedon gives his characters so that they are neither black and white nor underdeveloped. We like Joss too.

Now, I feel like high speed car chases are wasted in most movies. They're so overdone that there's just no excitement in them anymore. High speed hovercar chases though I can still get into, especially with the ever-unflappable Zoe at the helm. With some very smart flying between Wash and Zoe, they make it safely in with only one Reaver to shoot. Once in though, Mal gets his balls busted. Simon punches him for endangering his sister and Zoe points out that he did wrong by the guy they left to the Reavers. Afterwards, when Kaylee is talking to Jayne, she mentions the crew I've been wondering about: Shepard and Inara. 

Once they land on a planet, Simon and River depart with an emotional Kaylee behind yelling at Captain for not making more of an effort to make them part of the family. While Mal and Jayne are trying to conduct some business, River wanders in to the bar and has a mental breakdown where she goes all.... Terminator (can I use that reference) on all the patrons. She takes out everyone including Jayne until Simon comes in and says something that makes her pass out. She is a deadly weapon indeed. Mal picks up the unconscious River, but it's caught on camera. Mal's having a tough day and it's only getting worse when Mr. Gentleman watches that tape. I feel that I'm going to get freaked out again soon.

River after taking out the bar.

Back on Serenity, there is a very manly standoff where we find out that Simon learned a safeword that get River to fall asleep. Useful. Wash suggests that they get more intel by talking to Mr. Universe. That turns out to be David Krumholtz, who I am very excited to see in this movie. He finds out that the cartoon River was watching before she went Terminator (I feel okay using the reference now) was actually Alliance military subliminal messaging. Whether this is for all of their weapons or just for River to cause a scene so they can find her is not now known. Also, you could hear on the tape when River said "Miranda" and the safeword said by Simon. You bet that this will be used against them later. 

Simon tries to comfort River on the ship and she asks him to kill her. Obviously he doesn't, but she warns that things are going to get worse. Something I think will happen soon as it cuts to a scene of Mr. Gentleman ascending the stairs to see Inara. Crap. Kay guys, when I was wanting to see Inara again, it wasn't in front of this dude. Make it stop. 

But immediately after there's Shepard! Wasn't sure if I would like him when I first started watching the TV show, but oh he grew on me. And he's back with some snazzy braids and way more intel than a Shepard should have. We want to know your secrets, holy man!

When Mal gets a call from a nervous looking Inara, I'm picking apart her message trying to see if she's communicating with him subliminally - I'm in danger, don't come. I don't see anything. But the crew all gathers around to eavesdrop on the conversation, hoping Mal will stop being an idiot and drop to his knees asking her to marry him. Doesn't happen. You can't cure stupid with a single phone call.

However, when he gets up to the others, apparently Zoe and Mal know it's a trap. Hallelujah! They're still going it - because that's what you do for family, Mal! When he's about to get off the ship, he reminds Zoe to come get him if they haven't heard from him in an hour. There are no heroes on board the Serenity, except for all of them when the time comes. Of course. 

When Mal arrives, Inara is mad that he actually came. Enter: Mr. Gentleman. He is calm to a fault even when Mal shoots him the second after he mentions he's unarmed. Then he whips out the ninja, easily defeating them both. What Mal lacks in fighting finesse against him, he also lacks in sense as he stubbornly insists on getting his ass handed to him again. Luckily, Inara is smart and planted an explosive in her incense that knocks out the gentleman. They managed to get out without being tracked. 

Mal is a pretty lady.

With Inara back on the boat, they start to argue over their options. Jayne pisses off everyone and storms off while Mal and Inara are bickering amongst themselves. River is having another nightmare that involves decaying corpses and Reavers. 

I'm going to guess here that "Miranda" is one of those secrets that River may have learned from Parliament when they saw her. I'm also gonna take a stab and say that the Alliance itself is responsible for Reavers. No one can confirm their existence? Convenient. Especially as it's a good way to keep people in the outer planets scared without Alliance protection. Let's resume the show.

Jayne gets the idea to visit River with a gun. We can all see how this is dumb. She locks off the galley. While the crew split up to find her, Simon stays behind and gets attacked by River. This is interesting. She finds a planet - Miranda - and the crew congregates. She apologizes to Simon, saying she just didn't want him to make her go to sleep. "You could have just asked." They find out that Miranda has an uninteresting and uninhabitable history which is likely a ruse for what really went on there. However, there is a lot of open space between Serenity and Miranda and its full of Reavers. 

Before they decide whether or not to visit Miranda, they drop by the planet Shepard is on only to find it destroyed. Shepard managed to take down the ship that attacked them, but was fatally wounded doing so. Mal states that he's not going to die and that he's part of the crew. I want to claw some Alliance eyes out. He asks Mal to believe in something, then slips away. I've decided not to like this movie anymore. 

Suspicious that they only sent one ship to destroy the place, Zoe makes them send out messages to anyone who ever sheltered them telling them to run. It's too late. Mr. Gentleman gets a transmission through to Mal. He tells him that more people will die if he doesn't give River to him. He also tells him that he realizes he is a monster, but he believes in something greater than himself. There's that belief popping up again. Mal shuts him off mid-speech and marches out to order the bodies be strung up and lashed to the ship. He plans to disguise Serenity as a Reaver ship to get to Miranda against the wishes of his crew and the desecration of their friends. 

They make it through the gauntlet of freakiness to arrive on Miranda - a planet with huge cities despite the "history" that says they were never built. They are completely deserted and I'm flashing back to every zombie movie I've ever watched. It's time to be freaked out again. Especially when they find some dried out bodies with no discernible wounds. Starved zombie corpses, the lot of 'em. I'd bet something non-essential on it.

Kaylee with Miranda corpse. Happy nightmares.

They even find some "preserved" bodies in a windowed room. River starts to freak out saying that they're everywhere and they're all dead. Jayne is starting to get on edge too saying River is "starting to damage his calm". You and me both, buddy. They track the signal of a weak beacon back to a ship where River starts a hologram. A woman tells us that "we", which is presumably the Alliance, pumped chemicals into the air compressors on the planet. It was meant to calm the populace, to counteract aggression. And it worked. It worked so well that people just allowed themselves to die, explaining so many bodies with no signs of fatal wounds. She also explained that about 10% of the population had the opposite reaction, turning them into hyper-violent beasts that killed most of the holographic woman's crew. Yeah, this is going in the direction you'd hope for.  

The Alliance made Reavers. Called it. 

Mal decides to be a big damn hero and get that holograph to the world. Like he says, one day or another the Alliance will go back to thinking they can make people better and they'll try again. Maybe with another 3 million people like on Miranda. The plan is to get the holograph to Mr. Universe to transmit to at least 30 planets. They suspect that the Alliance will be expecting it and they are. Mr. Gentleman lets Mr. Universe tell them to come right before he runs him through with a sword. Seriously, what's with the sword? It's not an honorable death - it's a slow painful one. Get a gun, dude. Be a gentleman. 

With the Alliance on the other side of an ion cloud ahead of them, they still have to make it through the Reavers. They expect that they'll get attacked, so they're ready with the guns. Luckily, this pisses off the Reavers enough to follow - straight into a shooting match with the Alliance ships. Now, Mr. Gentleman wants to fire guns. 

Serenity narrowly manages to get free of the fire, but they have a tail that shoots out their main power. With just enough left, Wash manages to get them down in a crash landing on Mr. Universe's doorstep. Right before he gets impaled. Are you fucking kidding me? Mal barely manages to pull Zoe away from wash before another blast comes through the window. They find a place to make a stand while Mal finds him. Zoe is such a damn professional. If anyone is going to hold them against the Reavers it's her, but I want to hug her until her eyes pop out of her head. It would be worth it even after she shot me.

Mal finds Mr. Universe dead across the lap of his robot wife. He managed to program a message to Mal while he was dying, saying that there is a computer they missed above the generators. Problem is that when Mr. Gentleman dropped out of the ceiling, the robot told him too. Oops. Of course, it's hard to get to, positioned conveniently over the spinning fans in every other sci-fi movie with a spaceship. I'm pretty sure they just reuse the same prop. Mr. Gentleman arrives in time to shoot him in the back, but Mal's found something to believe in and die for. So he shoots and runs. This leads to some manly fisticuffs while swinging around conveniently placed chains, also borrowed from other movies. Mal's old war wounds work in his favor, allowing him to win the fight. He transmits the broadcasts and leaves Mr. Gentleman alive but strapped to a rail.

Back downstairs, River freaks out - not the time, honey - while Simon mentions to Kaylee that he regrets never being with her. Well to hell with that, Kaylee's gonna live. Kaylee's gonna get her some. She gears up ready to take on the world. When the Reavers break through to their position, Zoe takes out some very serious aggression on them, getting hurt in the process. If she dies with Wash, I am writing a very strongly-worded letter to Whedon. In other news, why doesn't anyone take a head shot? If you want to kill a sumvabitch, you take the head shot. Watch movies, people! As they all start to get shot to hell, they try to retreat only to have the doors not fully close. Oh, and then Simon gets shot. Handy. But it does get River over her shit so she can go kick ass and throw him back his medical kit. If they'd known that, I think someone would have shot him before the Reavers even got there. She takes them out, which is a simplistic way of saying she had a kick-ass battle sequence against at least a dozen Reavers.

River taking out the Reavers.

Mal makes it back downstairs to find his crew bloody but mostly still alive. The door opens to show River, also bloody and the ONLY one alive. The wall rips open behind her and Alliance troops storm in asking for a kill order. Mr. Gentleman gets to his radio and orders them to stand down. Look! It's the only good thing that's happened in the last 20 minutes. 

Then we see the headstones. Mr. Universe. Shepard. Wash. This is sci-fi and you can't even bring back Wash? I'm not crying, you're crying. 

They get Serenity fixed back up. Mal also gets a visit from Mr. Gentleman, telling him that he's no longer going to hunt him but that the Alliance isn't taken down either. True enough. I get the feeling that he walks off to die somewhere with dignity. Kaylee also gets her some, that is to say sex with a surprisingly buff Simon. River watches. It's only a little creepy. She also ends up being copilot to Mal. So the gangs staying together. Then they shoot off into the unknown.

Pros and Cons

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. I felt that it did justice to the TV show and the characters, though I wish we'd seen more of Shepard and Inara as well as Wash NOT DYING. I'm glad Kaylee finally got her some too because I lived through the Kaylee/Simon UST for an entire season and wasn't ready to do it again. The Mal/Inara UST didn't get resolved but we did see some light at the end of that tunnel, which I guess is enough. We got some of our questions from the show answered as well. Plus, I really do like the Reavers and was glad that they were an integral part of the story line. The movie was also much more sci-fi and less western though I can't say I'm sad about that. Bonus, I was actually right about my predictions, though I felt silly making them at the time. Boo-yah! I think the actors did a pretty good job of it here too, though there was a bit of a cheese factor. The standouts for me were Nathan Fillion who plays an excellent Mal and Gina Torres who handled Zoe's compassion and stiff upper lip with grace.

There were some things missing though. One of the aspects I really enjoyed from the TV show was the integration of cultures from the Alliance. I'm not sure if it's Mandarin or something else, but using both languages in the script was a really nice touch. We don't get to see that as much here. Also, I think any show that ends in a movie has that empty feeling. We're used to so much more character progression from the shows that has to be absent from a movie just to get the plot finished. We still see echos of old storylines - Jayne's betrayal, Simon and Kaylee's budding relationship, Mal and Inara's relationship - but they are really side notes when faced with a much larger issue of the plot. These comparisons are probably unfair to the movie itself as they are based on the discrepancy between the show and the film and not actually the film itself, but they are still relevant to the fans. However, I don't feel they detract too much from what is actually a pretty good movie.

Where to Watch

You can purchase Serenity from Amazon. As of the time of this posting, it also available from Netflix streaming.

If you want more backstory, you can purchase Firefly: The Complete Series from Amazon, or stream instantly from Netflix as well.