“There’s Nothing Serene About This Bizarre Space Western”

In 2002, Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, created an old west meets sci-fi TV series dubbed Firefly, which lasted less than a year (fifteen episodes, three of which never aired) on Fox. Gaining a small cult following and earning widespread praise from critics, Firefly never really found an audience and soon went the way of Birds of Prey, another truncated genre show that failed to take flight on The WB the same year. The progenitor of cancelled sci-fi shows, Star Trek, was pitched to NBC as a “Wagon Train to the stars” in the mid-Sixties. Though Star Trek and its multiple spin-offs scarcely resemble the original selling point, Firefly was the literal embodiment of that concept.

So here we have Serenity, a movie furthering the adventures of Captain Malcom Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his ragtag crew as they steer their equine cargo vessel (easily the ugliest spaceship I’ve ever laid eyes on) through Alliance territory with their mysterious passenger, River (Summer Glau). River has superhuman reflexes and strength (think Sydney Bristow on speed); her fight scenes are really the most enjoyable part of the film, besides Fillion’s oft-witty, off-kilter sense of humor.

As the crew ferries River to a secret destination, they have a series of misadventures while learning more about her “special” abilities—she’s a genetically engineered killing machine with telepathic abilities (wouldn’t have guessed that one). To add spice to the otherwise bland plot is the unrelenting pursuit of the cannibalistic Reavers (I knew the writers were smoking something), war-like aliens with ugly mugs and a disposition to match. The origin of the Reavers is revealed near the movie’s mid-point—they were once humanoid beings mutated by the radiation fallout of a nuclear holocaust—a sequence that harkens back to the Morlock back-story in The Time Machine (1960). However, what the scene gains in dramatic punch, it looses in originality.

As one who never saw an entire Firefly episode, I found Serenity’s learning curve a bit too steep for enjoyment, especially its customs and speech. The Southern-fried lingo is so anachronistic within the sci-fi milieu, it almost mutates the film into a comedy; not because the dialogue is particularly clever, but because the spurs and six-shooter speech is so abundant and so awkward it’s downright laughable, and that’s for sure and for certain. Also, the film’s politics are muddy and the moral relativism, “I don’t care what you believe in as long as you believe in something,” posited by the priest is as uninspired as the movie itself.

Serenity is a grim and violent piece of sci-fi that feels like a glorified TV show and will undoubtedly head straight to video as it heads off into the sunset.

Rating: 1 1/2

Tags: Action, Adventure, Sci-fi