In 1992, Joss Whedon put together a tongue-in-cheek screenplay about a spunky teenager battling the legions of the damned; five years later, he turned "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" into one of the most beloved (and maligned) TV shows of the past ten years. Now, writer/director Whedon has reversed that process by turning his defunct Fox show "Firefly" into the feature film "Serenity," with arguably similar success. It should be noted that I have never seen an episode of "Firefly," so all the following is based purely on the merits of the film itself. It's worth noting, though, that watching "Serenity" did not motivate me to seek out episodes of "Firefly."
The world of "Serenity" certainly has the makings of an entertaining production: hundreds of years into the future, mankind has long since abandoned Earth for the usual apocalyptic reasons. Now, 'The Alliance' controls with an iron grip a core group of planets that house most of the remaining population of humanity. On the outskirts of the core exist what is clearly an analogy to the Wild West of the post-Civil War era. There are plenty of anachronisms, as the heroes wield six-shooters along with submachine guns and gallivant about the planetary frontier in the sort of romanticized banditry made popular by the old Jesse James dime novels. "Serenity" is, then, a sci-fi-cum-Western with just enough plot for the bread-and-butter of either genre.
Leading the pack of loveable renegades is Mal (Nathan Fillion, who, like the rest of the cast, also appeared in the TV series), a gritty, silent type who captains Serenity — a spacecraft that always appears to be a hair's-breadth away from total disintegration. The comic relief comes in the form of Alan Tudyk ("A Knight's Tale"), who plays the ship's pilot and resident wisecracker, Wash. Drawing inspiration from Rambo, Adam Baldwin brings gusto to the gun-crazy Jayne. Other members of the crew include: Zoe (Gina Torres), the first mate; a suitably grungy mechanic; Simon (Sean Maher), the ship's doctor who bears an unnerving similarity to Spock; and River (Summer Glau), Simon's disturbed sister around whom the plot of "Serenity" revolves. I won't bother with further character explication, since Whedon doesn't bother with any of that himself.
As the first few scenes of "Serenity" make obvious, River — the Alliance having meddled with her mind, Manchurian Candidate-style — knows something she shouldn't, and an unnamed, honor-obsessed assassin (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is ordered to cover up the Alliance's dirty secret. This means chasing the crew across the frontier and causing a lot of big explosions for us to gawk at. In all of their adventuring, though, the early Western flavor takes second stage to a science-fiction tone. The Alliance feels like a combination of "Brave New World's" dystopian society and the evil Galactic Empire of "Star Wars," rather than a morally ambiguous entity one might expect from modern Westerns. Indeed, the places visited tend to draw more from "Blade Runner" and "Star Trek" (sans non-humans) than "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Whedon, in the form of a smug comment by the aforementioned assassin, shows that he is aware of the rampant clichés but still expects us to take the film and its characters seriously. Without a buildup of a dozen or so episodes, though, it is very difficult to become absorbed in "Serenity's" universe.
The final verdict: I would recommend this film to either avid "Firefly" fans or more devout followers of science fiction in general. Lovers of Westerns won't be too impressed, and the rest should probably steer clear of "Serenity."
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