Serenity

Too many of you won't give two figs about this film. And more's the pity. It's an intelligent, action-filled, extremely well-acted, humorous, soon-to-be-classic from the pen of Joss Whedon (better known for writing Buffy). Worlds apart from the latest Star Wars trilogy (George, take notice). The story behind this film (bear with me here) is that Whedon created a TV series that was sci-fi but not in any way fantastical. The crew of a spaceship are renegades after a multi-planet war that they lost, making them and the rest of the planets part of the (of course it's evil) Alliance. They scrounge their keep from planet to planet by taking on morally questionable jobs. Kinda like playing cowboy on the edge of known space. That was the series, called Firefly (reviewed here), and it was aired on the Sci-Fi Channel to almost no notice at all, in the grand scheme of things. Didn't help that they aired the episodes out of order which confused the general populace. The fervent few, who call themselves Browncoats after the popular name for the renegade soldiers, were devastated at the lost of "their" show. Fortunately, Whedon has come roaring back with this film, named after the spaceship itself. I had the great fortune to see this on opening day with Browncoats in abundance and while I'm not always a fan about doing that, I couldn't have asked for a more exhilirating experience. The audience, seeing as they knew the backstory backwards and forwards, laughed uproariously and gasped in shock at all the right points. I have met a few folks who didn't know the backstory and they all liked it hugely. So! Rent it when it's out on DVD (next month; yeah, disappointing box office take, but what did the studio expect?). And let me know what you thought of it.

year: 2005
length: 119 min.
rating: 4.0
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/combined