Serenity

A good while since I went to the cinema and an ever expanding list of things I wanted to see passing me by meant that a Halloween matinee seemed like a real treat. My first choice would have been Broken Flowers but it was on at the wrong time so I went for Joss Whedon's Serenity, the big screen version of cancelled TV Sci-Fi show Firefly. Word of mouth was very good for this unlikely success story and despite clips of scenes I'd seen looking like a slightly bigger budget TV pilot I thought I'd give it a go. Which turned out to be a good move - right from the start it appealed to the closet Trekkie in me and I found myself having a whale of a time being introduced to new characters, a new universe, new good guys and new bad guys. The backbone of what Whedon does well is always a set of rich characters with satisfying backstories being placed in interesting situations and given sparkling dialogue with a nudge and a wink to all sources of pop-culture never far away. And that's what you get here, perhaps in its most effective form ever! Yes, it is derivative - everything from Star Wars to Star Trek to Blade Runner and Blake's Seven is paid homage to in a cocktail of all things interstellar that somehow comes together in a totally original way. The original TV cast reprise their roles with relish (as if their very careers depended on it), including main man Nathan Fillion as captain of Serenity and leader of a down and dirty crew of space cowboys down on their luck. The rest of the cast do well enough, but it is Fillion's movie - the guy is a star! He delivers lines of dry wit, sarcasm, angst and strangled heartache with real panache, convincing us that all the inevitable comparisons to Harrison Ford are not as misplaced as you might think. Serenity has something that a lot of Sci-Fi, or fantasy films of any kind forget to have: a heart! Audiences will forgive any amount of wobbly sets and dubious plot devices so long as we care what happens to the people at the centre of it. In that, and in many other ways too, this is a complete gem worthy of more than just cult status and certainly a sequel or two. 8.5/10 Kx