Saturday, June 2, 2007

Serenity...completely serene

Serenity - Joss Whedon - 2005 - 9/10

Summary:

Captain Mal's (Nathan Fillion) "boat" the Serenity, piloted by Wash (Alan Tudyk) with Wash's wife Zoe (Gina Torres) as first mate, Kaylee (Jewel Staite) as the ship's mechanic, Adam Balwin as Jane - the ship's muscle, and Simon (Sean Maher) the ship's doctor. Things start to get crazy when the Parliament begins more actively pursuing the last member of the ship - Simon's sister River (Summer Glau), a girl with exceptional psychic and physical abilities. As the rag tag crew get chased by Parliament military units and Reavers (blood thirsty pirates), they try to piece together exactly why the Parliament is so actively pursuing River. The intent of the Parliament becomes crystal clear whent he ship discovers "The Operative" (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an almost superhuman Parliament assassin. Will the crew give up River to save their own skin? Why does the Parliament want River? Will Mal conquer his confused feelings toward his one true love, Inara (Morena Bacarin), in time to win her back?

Critique:



This movie was soo much fun to watch because it had EVERYTHING. There were cool characters, lots of action, realistic drama, an interesting futuristic world, and the list could go on. The movie works on so many levels - most of all realism because they fight with guns that fire bullets, real swords, and actual cannons like we use now, there isnt any lasers to comprehend, and the ships look like they could be made. And the story is simple enough that the movie can take time to cram in awesome action scenes with (limited) character development. And two actors really knocked my socks off. The first was Chiwetel Ejiofor who was right on as the sage like villain, elusively called "The Operative." I know I'm sticking my neck out here, but I think Ejiofor could challenge Agent Smith any day. The second was Summer Glau, who made me check imdb to make sure it wasnt Rose McGowan (I guess Charmed was one of the few TV shows Joss Whedon has never directed). But seriously, Summer was amazing, pulling off the bad ass female superfighter before McGowan picked it up in "Grindhouse," Summer is also convincing as the seer tormented by her visions and prophecies. The only problem with the movie is that Whedon counts a little too much on people having seen "Firefly." At least I thought so. The characters - whom I can tell are pretty sweet - are not ever really fleshed out. When ship members die its not that big of a deal because you dont really know them. And more importantly, you don't know the intricacies of the relationship of the ship members to understand what losing one of their own would do to them. But that isnt enough to hurt the movie, and really only makes me want to go out and watch "Firefly."

Verdict:

Buy it

If you liked this movie, watch...
...Titan, A.E.
...Equilibrium
...The Fifth Element

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