Serenity — the review

Forget the clever marketing strategy — is Serenity worth the coin? Does it soar like a leaf on the wind? The answer partially depends on where you fit in the movie-going universe: 1) Joe and Jane Moviegoer. If you like action flicks with a dash of surprising levity, Serenity is definitely worth checking out. Writer/director Joss Whedon clearly knows his genres, and has no trouble mixing them — in this case, sci-fi and westerns — and has even less trouble subverting genre stereotypes. The best parts are the first and last 30 minutes of the film. There’s a lot of backstory exposition, and if you go for opening weekend, you might notice a lot of oddly enthusiastic moviegoers, but I agree with Variety‘s Derek Elley in saying that, “Familiarity with the original episodes isn’t necessary, as a tight opening effectively recaps the backstory.” This is not Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me — thank God. [UPDATE: I’m glad to see this thumbs-up from someone illiterate in Whedon-speak.] If geeks and fanboys scare you, do not see Serenity on opening weekend. Then go. 2) Firefly fans. Hmmm… how to put this…. hell yes, it’s worth the coin. Whedon brought his “A” game and Universal gave him just enough money to make it very, very shiny. Whedon accomplishes in Serenity what he did so proficiently in his best work on TV — he creates characters who stay true to their motivations, and then makes you realize that just because an actor is featured in the opening credits, there’s no guarantee that they’ll still be alive when the end credits run. It’s that credible danger that makes the final half-hour of Serenity so intense for fanboys and fangirls alike. In Chiwetel Ejiofor, Whedon has found the perfect villain for this piece. Summer Glau and Nathan Fillion are equally good in the emoting and kickass fighting categories. The rest of the cast has their moments as well. 3) Aspiring movie auteurs: This take from Ken Tucker’s New York magazine review should whet your appetite:

[Whedon] can write quick, gabby banter for an array of heroes and oddballs better than any auteur since Preston Sturges, and he can dramatize the camaraderie within an ensemble better than anyone since Howard Hawks.

My take: You wish you could do a tracking shot like the one Whedon serves up in the opening credits. Serenity is a nice exercise in demonstrating how special effects should serve the story and not vice versa. As for dialogue, one person who saw an earlier preview put it best: “Han Solo wishes he was this cool.” Whedon betrays his TV past with some claustrophobic shots at some junctures, but this is a great big-screen directorial debut. 4) Libertarians: Back in August, I resisted posting on this debate on the politics of Firefly that had been going around the blogosphere. Having seen Serenity, I think I’ll weigh in. To recap: Tyler Cowen argued that the “implicit politics” of the show imply it’s “actually Burkean conservative.” Sara T. Hinson thought the show sounded libertarian themes — like all sci-fi:

At its best, science fiction advocates liberty. While Star Trek lamentably supported a “Federation knows best” mentality, other works like Star Wars and Robert Heinlein’s novels have promoted the dissolution of central rule and the triumph of the individual. For the science fiction writer, space means one thing: freedom. Like the Wild West where men made their own rules and property rights were enforced at the end of a landowner’s shotgun, space has afforded the hope that one day man can move beyond the reach of any government’s oppressive hand.

Having seen Serenity, I have to side with Hinson. While I thought the television show had both libertarian and modern liberal themes, the movie is actually more libertarian . Indeed, without giving Serenity‘s plot away, the information you discover about the Reavers negates one of the anti-libertarian critiques present in Firefly. So go see the goram movie. UPDATE: Jacob Levy saw the same screening I did, and blogs an excellent review. This paragraph captures the film well:

This is not a genre-buster like Matrix or even a genre-redefiner like Blade Runner. It’s more of an ante-raiser like Alien: “See? This thing that we’ve gotten used to seeing done badly can be done really, really well.” For Alien, it was making a monster movie genuinely suspenseful, scary, and visually compelling. For Serenity, it’s making space opera morally serious and centered on complete characters with convincing relationships and first-rate dialogue. I predict that it will make watching Star Wars or Star Trek movies harder to do without cringing.

Matthew Yglesias also liked it — though I don’t agree with Yglesias’ assertion that Whedon painted “the Alliance as a cartoonishly evil empire.” [Dude, don’t you and everyone else are overreading a sci-fli flick?–ed. You don’t know Whedon. From the Toronto Star‘s Marlene Arpe:

Whedon’s work is studied in universities, it’s the subject of academic conferences and about a dozen books in print. [Whedon says,] “Who’s gonna feel bad about that? I’ve worked enormously hard on every episode of every show I’ve ever done, not just to have it be interesting, but to have a very specific reason to put it on … And so there’s been, with my writers, a great deal of discussion about philosophy and politics and message and structure, so to have it be a field of study, feels like we actually communicated…. Language is my drug.”

So there.] ANOTHER UPDATE: In Reason, Julian Sanchez has a link-rich, spoiler-rich essay on the philosophical roots of Serenity — and makes a persuasive case for the role of Camus as well as Hayek. In Slate, Seth Stevenson likes Serenity but thinks Joss Whedon’s comparative advantage is in the long narrative arcs of episodic television. Salon‘s Stephanie Zacharek agrees:

I still feel some anxiety that “Serenity” will be viewed by audiences unfamiliar with Whedon’s work as just another sci-fi-geek enthusiasm. My problem, I think, is that “Serenity” dredges up some of the same feelings I have when a movie adaptation of a book I love just doesn’t measure up. I’m so used to “reading” Whedon in the long form — so used to riding the rhythms of his television series, rhythms he sustains beautifully week after week, season after season — that “Serenity,” as carefully worked out as it is, feels a bit too compact, truncated. That’s less a failing on Whedon’s part than a recognition of the way TV, done right, can re-create for us the luxury of sinking into a good, long novel. I hope Whedon makes many more movies (and there’s the enticing possibility that “Serenity,” if it does well, will be the beginning of a franchise). Faced with a big screen, Whedon knows exactly what to do with it. But the small one needs him, too. Of all the pleasures TV watching has to offer, he has perhaps tapped the greatest one: that of waiting on the docks, anxious to find out what happens next.