| Overall Grade: |
A- |
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| Story: |
B+ |
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| Acting: |
B+ |
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| Direction: |
A- |
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| Visuals: |
A |
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The New Western
by antaydos (movies profile)
Mar 16, 2008
118
of
124 people found this review helpful
I could write this review in standard form. I could methodically go through a checklist of acting performance, direction, cinematography, music, etc., and critique each accordingly. I could bore you with complaints about little nuances (if any). But the thing is that this film doesn't deserve that. This film actually works well enough that I can just straight-out give you my overall impression, without the chore of looking for faults and their subsequent justifications. Let me say this: Awesome.
This movie, as some of you may know, is based on the short-lived tv series Firefly, and is apparently a prequel to it. I've never seen an episode of Firefly, and judging by the commercials for Serenity, I was expecting a made-for-tv low-budget cheese-fest that was lucky enough to make it to theaters rather than fester on the Sci-Fi channel. Luckily for me, I was wrong.
Serenity tells the story of a 17-year old psychic girl named River Tam who's been programmed to be a weapon. It starts with her rescue from the complex that's holding her by her brother, and the two eventually find their way onto the ship Serenity, captained by war-veteran Malcolm and his crew. It's realized that she knows something important, and the rest of the movie is spent trying to figure it out.
At its core, Serenity is a modernized Western. The parallels are easy to spot. The main cast of the film are the "Outlaws", the Alliance are the "Sheriff", and the Reavers are the "Indians". It's also apparent in other ways, such as how Malcolm fires his antique-looking pistol from his hip. The country twang guitar music further emphasizes this feeling. Does it work? Hell yes it works. And it's amazingly fun.
It's well written, in that it's never boring, there's aptly-placed comic relief, and the plot is engaging. I found myself continually wanting to know what happened next, and worrying about the characters' well-being, which I've found to be increasingly rare these days. However, I had some difficulty getting past Alan Tudyk portraying any character other than Steve the Pirate from Dodgeball, but that's my own fault.
There's one scene that's visually incredibly influenced by Bladerunner. The crew lands at some city/port, and the buildings with all the neon lights and flying cars look like they were lifted straight out of Ridley Scott's film. I'm not saying it's copied, just that it's understood to be a nod of appreciation.
Well, now I'm interested in Firefly. However, if that proves to be unattainable, I would greatly look forward to more Serenity films. This movie is so good that it could be the definitive scifi film of this decade. At least, it deserves to be. |
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