Step aside Star Wars, sci-fi has a new King. This epic masterpiece from acclaimed television director, Joss Whedon, is brimming with style and attitude. A six-gun western attitude in a futuristic dystopia make this movie finale to the unfortunately failed TV show, Firefly, an extremely enjoyable adventure into rogue space. Firefly could’ve breathed some life back into the presently stagnant science fiction genre, but the show was cut before it even got a chance to build a fan base. Fox apparently felt that repeats of Star Trek were more important.
How many failed TV shows can you name that had a movie sequel made. What about a Pen And Paper role playing game? How about an MMO? You dropped the ball Fox. You dropped it right on your foot and tripped over it down a 12 story staircase. After Joss Whedon’s fans gravitated from Buffy and Angel there was mass hysteria and general hatred toward Fox and their political mumbo jumbo. This uproar brought Joss Whedon to make Serenity, the movie sequel to Firefly. As the man himself said; this isn’t his movie, this is the fans’ movie…so if it sucks it’s all your fault. 
Considering that Firefly was canceled, Joss Whedon didn’t exactly have a large budget to sink on making a huge sci-fi movie. To most Directors this would’ve been the end of the line, but Joss Whedon isn’t like most Directors–the man is a lunatic, but a genius lunatic to be sure. He sunk every penny he had into finishing the story, because that’s what a good writer does, right? Despite the movie having such a low budget there is no sign at all of it in the movie. The crew did an extraordinary job of making everything look perfect for the least money possible. Just watch as the walkway shifts when Mal walks away from the core computer at Mr. Universe’s place. The production quality of this movie can only be described as miraculous for it’s budget.
The acting is, quite possibly, the greatest acting I have seen in a long, long time. All the actors seemed to really believe they were the characters they played. Their personalities meshed so well and, despite their differences, they were like a family–albeit a somewhat disfunctional one. I’m sure all the actors must be very good friends with each other outside of their characters because their body language and facial expressions were so exact to the intended emotion it felt real. I applaud the cast and hope to see them do well with their future endeavors.
The story was very involving and kept me wanting to see more to find out what River really was and why she was being so persistently pursued by the Alliance. The whole movie was packed with suspense, action, style and variety. It wasn’t like many movies where you mindless watch and think “oh look…another car chase…”, it was more like, “HOLY HELL THAT WAS AWESOME!!!”, if you know what I mean. The only thing about the movie that disappointed me was that it had to come to an end eventually. It would be really great if a prequel was made, or even a totally different storyline that took place in the Firefly universe.
All in all everything about this movie was incredible. I bought it on HD DVD–there really is nothing like watching this movie on a High Definition LCD TV. The quality of the video and the actual movie itself make it so believable you would swear you were an extra cast member.
You can find Serenity on DVD and HD DVD at Play-Asia.
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