I was expecting “Buffy In Space” and I was rewarded with a much hipper version of “Star Trek.”
Tools:
Recommend review to a friend »
Every great once in a while, fans are rewarded in one way or another. Joss Whedon´s "Serenity" is a reward that fans of the "Firefly" television series may never have expected and a reward that is seldom given out in Hollywood. You see, "Firefly" was unceremoniously dropped after a short run of eleven episodes had aired. They were shown out of sequence and with little help from the marketing department. However, those eleven episodes were enough for the show to grab a solid cult following and incite a riot of sorts among the disappointed fanbase who watched "Firefly" crash and burn after such a short flight across the airwaves. They made a lot of noise and that noise was heard by Universal, who greenlighted a feature film based upon the characters of the television show.
Now, before I dive into my review of the "Firefly" film, "Serenity," I will come clean and tell you I have never seen an episode of "Firefly." Not one. In fact, the film held very little interest for me upon viewing the theatrical trailers. The tale of an entire ship risking their lives and causing others to lose their lives for the sake of a somewhat attractive seventeen year old was just not appealing enough to me. Had they been trying to save Uma Thurman - maybe. Summer Glau - not interested. A coworker at the time consistently told me that the forthcoming "Serenity" would be the absolute best film of the year. I wrote his fanboyism off as sheer madness.
So why the interest in making "Serenity" my very first HD-DVD review? Simple. I heard from a few friends that had seen the film that were not "Firefly" fans, that the film was entertaining. They told me I would relate to the ship´s captain, Malcom Reynolds (Nathan Fillion). I heard enough of a positive buzz from others that I figured I would pick up "Serenity" when it was in the $10 DVD bin somewhere or I would take a peek when it graced the menus of In-Demand. Then came HD-DVD and my need to secure a title or two for my shiny new Toshiba HD-DVD player. There was "Serenity" and I thought I´d love to see those space explosions in glorious Hi-Definition. Was my purchase worth it? Let´s find out.
"Serenity" begins with Simon Tam (Sean Maher) rescuing his younger sister, River Tam (Summer Glau) from a science experiment of sorts. Just before they are captured, a starship rescues them from their would-be capturers. Of course, that starship is the Serenity. However, the escape witnessed on the screen was a security recording being viewed by a man with no name and rank (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and will stop at nothing to bring River back into Alliance custody. This person is a ruthless killer who has shaped some of his lifestyle to that of the ancient samurai warriors and feels his actions are for the greater good of mankind.
The crew of the Serenity are a band of space-pirates and are led by captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion). "Mal" fought against the Alliance in the Serenity war and became a war hero. Now, he will take any job to earn a buck, but his crew has come across hard times and is having difficulty finding work. The rest of the crew consists of pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), gun-happy merc Jayne (Adam Baldwin), sexy mechanic Kaylee (Jewel Staite) and Zoe Washburne (Gina Torres). Wash and Zoe are husband and wife and the sanest members of the crew. Kaylee is cute and easy going and doesn´t quite fit the mold of either a pirate or a starship mechanic. Jayne is all about his own skin and how many weapons and grenades he can carry to any situation. Mal comes across as a hard-to-like individual that will do what he can to cover his own ass first, his crew and limited number of friend second and anybody else if they have money or he has some spare time.
Mal and Jayne are of the same mind that River and Simon do not belong on Serenity and they decide to drop them off at the first starport. However, at a bar at the starport, River goes from young and naïve to a killing machine in under a second and decimates the bar. In the process, she brutalizes Jayne and beats Mal to the draw. Simon conjures a few words that knock her out cold and prevents her from giving Mal another facial orifice. River is not what she appears and the crew takes her and Simon back aboard the Serenity and high tails it back into space.
As the film progresses, the crew of the Serenity find out that there is more to River and Simon and they discover more about themselves. They must travel through the deep space lair of the "Reavers", a band of cannibalistic psychopaths who bring back memories of the film "28 Days Later" and find the root of nightmares that River is having and discover why the Alliance assassin is trying so hard to get River back. Not having watched the series, I don´t know what loose ends from the series are tied in the two hour sci-fi epic, but there are definitely moments of closure for some of Serenity´s crew.
Once the film gets past the ´get re-acquainted with the crew´ storyline and offering enough background for the non-fan (like myself) to feel somewhat comfortable aboard the Serenity. There is a lot of history behind "Serenity" and there are a billion questions I wanted answered after the first half hour. For instance, is Mal always despicable? It is not an easy task to bring new viewers up-to-speed with just thirty minutes of background information. You risk alienating your veteran viewers by rehashing or giving too much ´we known this already´ type of info. Even though this is a film for the fans, one needs to make money and to do this, one needs to educate new viewers. "Serenity" does an admirable job attempting to do so.
The film itself is entertaining. More so than I expected. I am a "Star Wars" baby and was brought up on the original trilogy. "Star Trek" is a bore to me. I loved Kirk for all his bravado and alien arse-kicking charm. The rest of it put me to sleep. I expected "Serenity" to be much more like "Star Trek," but even though there are a lot of similarities, the show has its own appeal to it. Mal, I did not care for much until the end of the film. I wanted to see Jayne kick much "Reaver" tail. Kaylee is much easier on the eyes than Scotty. The film fast paced and its two hour running time moved quickly. I feel the creator could have made a much better picture had he focused more on the "Reavers" and the reavers always seemed to be slighted on camera time when they were part of the story. They were only seen in MTV-style cuts during the fights scenes. More of a horror/sc-fi element would have sent me out to purchase the "Firefly" DVDs.
The special effects were very good. This film surely looked better than something that came from television. I expected visual cheese. Aside from a landing sequence or two, "Serenity" looked solid. Especially in High Definition. The film felt very polished and had the appeal of a high-budget Hollywood blockbuster and not the $40 million dollar film (as stated by imdb.com). In fact, the only cheese in the film was a couple lines by Mal, but if I was more familiar with the character, they may have been good lines. The sets were absolutely gorgeous. The commentary with Whedon stated a few shots were overhead, because they couldn´t afford the green screen effects, so I suppose a lot of credit goes to Whedon for knowing how to use his budget to make a bigger film.
After viewing "Serenity," I will not say that I am an instant "Firefly" fan. However, if given the chance to view the DVDs I just may do so. I had very low expectations for the movie and I ended up liking the film. The whole 17-year old in distress by the creator of "Buffy" had me worried, but it was played well. This wasn´t a ´teenage romp in space´ and the characters were varied and had good depth. Granted, I still have no clue why River was dreaming of Reavers and if she had been on the planet before and I REALLY wanted to see more of the crazed cannibals from space, but "Serenity" entertained me. I have questions I still want answered. So, anytime a film leaves you wanting to know more could be considered a good thing.
Video
So, how does HD-DVD look? In a word -- phenomenal. Having watched broadcast HDTV for the past couple years, I am no stranger to the wonders of 1080i or 720p. Being an avid Xbox 360 player, I know how colorful and wondrous HD can be. Still, the picture quality of HD-DVD impressed me. The compression artifacts and ´noise´ of cable broadcast. The image was insanely detailed and as stable as can be. Unfortunately, I could not secure a regular copy of "Serenity" to review on DVD and I don´t know how much of an improvement the quality is over the original release. There is also no current ´bar´ for HD-DVD and it will be very difficult to accurately score the first few releases, as there is nothing to compare it against. Compared to the three DVDs I watched ("The Last Samurai," "Phantom of the Opera" and "Serenity"), "Serenity" fell in the middle. It wasn´t as jawdroppingly beautiful as "Phantom", but it was an overall better picture than "Samurai." They all looked great, but "Serenity" was not as impressive as "Phantom of the Opera."
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]18834[/release]