SERENITY by Joss Whedon
The Alliance is ruling the galaxy after a civil war, but they don’t have enough staff to keep the outer worlds under control and bring “peace” and “civilization” everywhere at once. The crew of the SERENITY under Captain Mal (Nathan Fillion) was on the “wrong” side of the war, and they have a mysterious girl and her brother on board. The girl, River Tam (Summer Glau), has been victim of a top secret Alliance project and her brother, doctor Simon Tam (Sean Maher), rescued her from a government lab. Still on the run from the Alliance after one year, they are “guests” on board of the SERENITY and Simon pays for their passage with his medical skills. Which are dearly needed, because the SERENITY has to keep a low profile with the fugitives on board, the ship is a piece of junk, so the captain has to take any job he can get – including smuggling and raiding Alliance bases.
And an alliance operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is already on the trail of the SERENITY – an ice-cold killer who believes the Alliance will create a better world – and he will do whatever is needed to create this better world, even kill children if necessary. The operative is convinced that the psychic River is in possession of an important government secret and has to be eliminated before she can talk.
The crew of the SERENITY has to go a long and bloody way through the territory of the cannibalistic Reavers to uncover the dark secret of the Alliance on the deserted planet Miranda.
***** SPOILER WARNING *****
SERENITY is the movie to the short-lived TV-series Firefly produced by the FOX TV network. And it’s no coincidence that the film is produced by competitor UNIVERSAL. There was a moral outcry when Firefly was aired – the “moral majority” didn’t want to see a “hero” who wasn’t heroic, a promiscuous female mechanic or a heroic prostitute. While there is basically no eroticism or sex in the movie, Captain Mal is still not your standard movie hero – he is a tougher version of Han Solo (and Han Solo shot first!) with a flavor of Rick “i stick my neck out for nobody” Blaine (Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca), and the movie plot is subversive enough (secret government plan to sedate and control the population goes horribly wrong, all evidence is suppressed, people are killed in cold blood to keep the secret) to upset some people.
On the surface, SERENITY is your typical popcorn-movie: a space-western with lots of action, “zombies”, good and bad guys, special effects, explosions and enough funny one-liners to keep the audience who doesn’t get the references (or simply isn’t interested in them) happy, and no knowledge of the TV series Firefly is required.
The actors do their job well (it’s the original actors from the TV series), and i want to close with a quote from pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), repeated like a mantra during a crazy flight right through a space battle (see pictures on top) : “I am a leaf on the wind – watch how i soar”
Indeed – watch it!
