Serenity (2005)

Serenity: 2005, dir. Joss Whedon. Seen on DVD (Dec. 30, 2005).
I heard a lot about Serenity even before its release, because I have many friends who are loopy for anything touched by Joss Whedon. They were terribly excited that a movie was being made from Whedon’s science-fiction TV series Firefly. Serenity had a lot of sneak previews in select cities long before its release date, presumably to build up word-of-mouth. What it did was confirm to many of us non-fans that Serenity would appeal strictly to fans. The trailers we saw in theaters provided further proof—it appeared that if you weren’t familiar with the TV series, the movie was not for you. (The low box-office numbers for the film prove my theory that the marketing campaign backfired.)
However, my friends who went positively ga-ga over Serenity assured me that the movie was not just for fans, that they’d brought along this person or that one and every single person just loved the movie even if they had never heard of Firefly (except perhaps as Rufus T.’s last name). My boyfriend and I were skeptical at first, but eventually we succumbed and rented the movie on DVD.
It turned out we had been right in the first place: we found Serenity to be dull and flat and even annoying, and I suspect that it relied too heavily on the audience already knowing something about the characters. We had no idea who these people were, if they were new for the movie or regulars on the TV show, but we never learned much about them and some of them never showed much depth.

For example, one female character showed up in mid-movie and after her first scene, did nothing to contribute to the film other than wearing pretty outfits. Did she and the ship’s captain have A Past? Maybe, but it was hard to care. I don’t believe that a lot of backstory is necessary but this movie contained too much shorthand for fans, especially in terms of characterization.
The storyline didn’t make a lot of sense to me, either. The ship’s doctor rescues his little sister from a government program that has turned her into a valuable, deadly weapon: she’s an amazing fighter and possesses mind-reading powers. All during the film, characters talk about her as though she could destroy entire worlds with some secret untapped power that is never quite explained. We see her fighting skills, and the occasional mind-reading moment, but none of that strikes me as being as incredible as advertised.
Every plot point was telegraphed in advance, usually by foreshadowing that was a subtle as a brick to the head. Maybe if you’ve seen no movies at all, you wouldn’t realize the minute you saw Mr. Universe’s “robot wife” that she’d have something important to do before the end of the film. Maybe you wouldn’t spot the traps before the characters did. Maybe you would have felt some surprise at the way the psychic little sister behaved.
The very end of the movie—the resolution of the climactic sequence—is unbelievably dumb. The characters act inconsistent in order to further the movie’s theme about believing in a cause and fighting for it until you die. Not only that, but part of it reminded me of the ending hospital scene in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and not in a good way—something happened that is mocked amusingly in the other film.
Serenity isn’t a science-fiction movie; it’s a space Western. You could move the setting to the Old West, put the characters in cowboy hats, and barely have to change the script. Sometimes I felt like the filmmakers were trying to channel Sam Peckinpah; a few scenes felt like they might have been inspired by The Wild Bunch, or maybe by some imitation of The Wild Bunch. The captain affects some sort of pseudo-Texas accent and the occasional homespun turn of phrase.
Speaking of which, I couldn’t abide the dialogue style in this movie. The lines were delivered as thought they were witty and clever barbs from the 1930s, but they were generally clunkers. A character breaks into a safe and wisecracks, “At last, we can retire and give up this life of crime.” Gee, when did you ever hear such an original line? The occasional funny line does surface, thus tricking you into thinking you’re hearing lots of great dialogue, but it was mostly mush to me.
I think Serenity would have played well as a two-part episode of Firefly on TV, but what works on TV doesn’t always work in a theater. I am disappointed because I wanted to like Serenity. So many of my friends loved it and saw it three times in the theater. I have read very few negative reviews of this movie. What did I miss? Or is the problem simply that I didn’t know Firefly and that I am not any kind of a Joss Whedon fan … I’ve seen maybe two episodes of Buffy and could not get interested. My guess is that Serenity isn’t a good stand-alone movie, but it’s a fun movie for fans. Too bad for the rest of us.
(Sorry, Greg. We did try.)