Serenity is a sci-fi action film from Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s somewhat in the vein of Star Wars without the self-importance. (There’s even a bit of humor.) The story, set 500 years’ hence, begins when a “reader” (psychic) gets broken out of a government facility by her brother. They take refuge aboard Serenity, a fancy spaceship whose captain, a hero of a recent war, has turned to petty interstellar crime. A guy from “the Alliance” (the government) is hot on their heels, and cannibalistic “Reavers” are also marauding about the solar system. The film was clearly made with the possibility of sequels in mind, and while the story doesn’t feel incomplete, some of its elements feel underdeveloped. What was the war about? Where do the psychics’ abilities come from? Luckily, the film is well-done enough that fans of the genre will want to find out. [I suspect that many of these questions were answered in Firefly, the short-lived (2002-2003) Fox TV series on which this was based. The cast of relative unknowns is taken right from the series.] The CGI effects are solid, the action sequences fairly good, not great, and the non-psychic characters, with one exception, are standard-issue action film sorts.
IMDB link
viewed 10/1/05 at Moorestown; reviewed 10/3/05
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