Stay Shiny

SERENITY (2005)
Starring Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Chiwetel Ejiofor

You’ll like this movie if: You know that Joss Whedon is one of the most underrated people in show business.

If you could bring back one TV show canceled way before its time, what would it be?  (Star Trek doesn’t count, since a show that spawns that many spin-offs clearly lives on.  Forever.  And ever.)

If you said the original Battlestar Galactica, fair enough, but we all know the new one is a lot better.  If you said Family Guy, they clearly did bring it back.  Twice, actually.  If you said Heil Honey I’m Home, you obviously have, shall we say, unusual taste.  (Yes, that was a real TV show.  Look it up on YouTube if you don’t believe me.  It’s exactly what it sounds like.  Guess why it didn't last.)

Me, I’d pick Joss Whedon’s short-lived series Firefly, which ran for three months in 2002.  If you’ve seen it, it’s very hard to argue it’s not one of the most fascinating TV shows of the last several years, especially since it doesn’t have much competition in the sci-fi/western crossover category.  It’s a mix that appears to not make a huge amount of sense - see: Cowboys and Aliens - but it worked here.  I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like it.  Well, actually, I used to.  We don’t talk anymore.

Sadly, it got canceled after only one season.  But it says a lot about the show’s rabid fan following that they actually got a movie made out of it a few years later.  That would be Serenity.

It’s a continuation of the TV show’s story, which means the same cast, full of names you’d probably never heard of but who work so well together that you wonder why these folks don’t get more consistent work.  (Some actually have in recent years - one, Nathan Fillion, got a TV show, Castle, and parts in a few Halo games.)

One of them, a young girl named River Tam (Summer Glau, an incredibly underrated kicker of keesters), is on the run from the authoritarian regime that turned her into...you know what, I’ll skip it.  Fans of the show will know the whole story, and people who haven’t seen it yet really should.  Not only is it fantastic viewing, it also makes a lot more sense to watch it all in order.  I made the mistake of not doing that.  You can probably get away with it, but it works a lot better if you watch the show first.

Firefly had a certain light-heartedness, managing to balance the comedy and drama and action fairly well from episode to episode.  Serenity doesn’t quite feel like a longer episode - it’s darker and features a bit less witty banter between the cast.  If you do watch Firefly first, be prepared for a bit of a letdown when you pop Serenity into your DVD player.

But don’t expect to be incredibly disappointed.  Serenity is a quite well-made film, with a very nice cast and a quite underrated man behind the camera.  (You can catch Joss Whedon directing The Avengers pretty soon, which seems like a pretty decent career move.)  Serenity isn’t a thriller, per se, but it has its moments.  If one of the groups of bad guys, the Reavers, look like they’re basically zombies with a bad case of road rage, it’s still easy to see why the crew isn’t too happy about running into them.

Just promise me something.  When you watch this stuff and get wowed by it - and you will, trust me - tell your friends about it so they’ll spring for the DVDs.  Us fans want another one made.

Four and a half stars out of five.