Serenity

The main reason why this movie exists is because hardly anyone watched the tv show it was based on. You see, the show, called Firefly, was the brainchild of Joss Whedon and had the misfortune of getting picked up by Fox. And Fox, well, they have a make us an assload of money now or die in a fire attitude toward programming. They killed the show after only 14 incredibly fantastic episodes which left the diehards screaming for more. Whedon, god bless him, worked his ass off to get $40 million together to do this movie to help tie up the loose ends of the series and to demonstrate exactly how awesome this could be.

So why did the show not get ratings? I blame you, the reader. That’s right, it’s all on you. Firefly was original, clever, funny as hell, had an amazing cast led by the hilarious Nathan Fillion, was beautifully written, genuinely adventurous and entertaining, and it should still be airing now and making me laugh. Apparently however, that’s not enough for some people. They need to sit on the edge of their seats watching a fucking karaoke contest or live action DDR renamed So You Think You Can Dance or some other shit that rots the soul. Bad, bad reader!!

The show, and the movie, takes place 500 years in the future. Earth could no longer sustain its’ population so it sent ships out to the far corners of the galaxy to find suitable planets and moons to terraform. This new group of interstellar colonies was to be run under the central command of the two most powerful countries of earth (USA & China) and called the Alliance. As free people are wont to do, some thought the idea of centralized government was bullshit and rebelled. The soldiers of this ragtag group of independence fighters were called Brown coats. They got their asses kicked and now basically live to piss off the authorities.

One of the most fulfilling ways to annoy authority is to steal and smuggle their shit. That is exactly what the crew of Serenity do best. Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) leads a merry band of outlaws who travel the outer rim looking for jobs and stuff to steal – basically, Robin Hood in space. His right hand lady is Zoe (Gina Torres), who fought beside Mal in the war for independence. She is seriously badass and fluent in the language of sarcasm. Zoe is married to ship pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk) who could fly an oil tanker through a mosquito’s puckered sphincter if he was so inclined. He’s not, but he could. The undersexed engineer is Kaylee (Jewel Staite). Jayne (Adam Baldwin) is the thick headed muscle who has a gun for every occasion. Sean Maher plays the ship doctor Simon. He has pulled off the ultimate heist – he stole his batshit crazy sister River back from the Alliance where she was being used for extensive military/medical experimentation.

The story is extremely rich and layered so I won’t get into too much detail here. So here are a few quick pointers to guide you through: River is a psychic and of high military value to the Alliance, they will do anything to get her back. Through all 14 episodes of the tv series, she was basically a free roaming nutbar who acted weird and creeped everyone out. In the movie, she’s been given a subliminal trigger that unleashes her inner Bruce Lee which in addition to her unpredictable and crazy demeanor, makes her utterly terrifying and confounding. Jayne has tried all along to get rid of her, because having her aboard means having extra attention from the authorities, which is bad for smugglers.

Very important to keep in mind – China and the USA are the two dominant powers of the Alliance, so in this future, everyone speaks English and Chinese (I know Chinese isn’t a language, but fuck off and go with it). Usually the Chinese comes out when they want to swear.

Sexual tension time – Mal loves Inara, a gussied up space whore, and she loves him too, but neither seem able to admit it to each other. Kaylee loves Simon and vice versa, and they’ve wanted to hump each other blind basically since they met, but he is clueless about how best to do this. Zoe obviously loves Wash, being married and all, and Jayne basically loves guns, food, money and really cheap whores.

Knowing this, I send you forth to watch and love this film. It wouldn’t kill you to watch the tv series, but even if you don’t, the movie will stand on it’s own. It is hilarious, brilliant, adventurous, has a great pace, excellent dialogue, is a great story, it’s fun, and light and yes, I do love it so much I want to marry it. If you watch it and hate it, I’m sorry, we can’t be friends anymore.

I rate Serenity 9 out of 10