Serenity
Star Wars it's not...and that's a good thing.
Why did all the new Star Wars movies suck? Because the Jedis are the most amazingly boring group of people this side of the Death Star. There was no Han Solo, and let's be honest, everyone wants to be Han Solo. Serenity writer and director Joss Whedon knows this – or he really likes western archetypes in space, but I digress – here we not only get one Solo, we get a whole crew of them, and the end result is a far more magical experience than Episodes I–III put together.
Set five hundred years in the future, mankind has made Earth uninhabitable (whoops, better recycle that Mountain Dew can), and so they did what any renter would do; they packed up and moved off and didn’t even stop to get the security deposit back. We find the crew several years after a bloody civil war that leaves many under the control of a fascist regime, and those who are free are scattered throughout the galaxy in tiny clusters, kind of like the old West. Clever, huh?
Our group of Solos – the crew of Serenity – finds itself with a deadly cargo, a young girl who has been chosen to be The One. Her name is Buff... wait, wrong Whedon property, but she really is Buffy in space. This time she isn't slaying any vampires. She's inadvertently came upon some literal skeletons in the galactic closet and the alliance wants her dead.
In a clever, fast-paced, delightfully dialogued film, the whole cast becomes one entity, and they more than make up for the tragedy of losing out on what could have been a fantastic television show. Whedon has really hit his stride in his writing; many would consider his previous best writing being his sting on "Astonishing X-men." Whedon may have created the next great sci-fi universe, and if not, he at least makes for one hell of a great time at the movies.
Written by: Kevin Yeoman
Reviewers Rating: 8.5
Reader's Rating: 9.29
Reader's Votes: 7
Added: 3-Nov-2005
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