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Written by Al-Akfar
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SERENITY ****½ out of ***** Written and directed by Joss Whedon Cast Nathan Fillion .... Mal Gina Torres .... Zoe Alan Tudyk .... Wash Morena Baccarin .... Inara Adam Baldwin .... Jayne Jewel Staite .... Kaylee Sean Maher .... Simon Summer Glau .... River Ron Glass .... Shepherd Book Chiwetel Ejiofor .... The Operative David Krumholtz .... Mr. Universe
Simply put, Joss Whedon’s Serenity has to be one of the best movies I have seen in a long while. It seems an age since I last walked out of a cinema so impressed by the film I had just seen. More impressively, Serenity was at an early disadvantage due to the pathetically small distance between my face and the screen on account of the complete inability of my associates (you know who you are) to secure half decent seats (curse you).
 For those unfamiliar with the Firefly series which forms the basis for the Serenity movie, it is set 500 odd years into the future. Earth-that-was has long since been abandoned due to overpopulation, and new planets in distant parts of the galaxy have been terraformed and colonised. The various colonised planets are now organised into a federated body known as the Alliance.
The series begins some years after a bloody war of independence was lost by those planets seeking to free themselves from Alliance control. The conflict between the separatist-minded Browncoats and the Alliance has a very American-Civil-War feel to it, though with no suggestion of the Browncoats being slavers.
Malcolm (Mal) Reynolds, a veteran of the war, has acquired a small freight vessel, which he uses make money in and around the border planets where Alliance control is at its weakest. These recently-colonised border planets have a distinct wild-west feel to them, making this the first Cowboy series or movie I am aware of to have been set in space.
 Mal’s ship, a Firefly class dubbed Serenity (named after the Battle of Serenity Valley in which Mal fought), is crewed by a diverse group of folk each of whom with their own reasons for wishing to be away from the core systems. Among them are a young doctor and his sister, River, for whom he gave up his job and fortune in order to smuggle her out of an Alliance institution. At the institution, to which her parents had sent her believing it to be a school for highly-gifted children, River had been the subject of Alliance experiments, evidently designed to turn her brain into some manner of scary futuristic-type weapon. The Alliance, who had rather hoped to keep the programme quiet are fairly keen to reacquire River, and go to lengths to do so – much excitement ensues.
Mal and his crew get by doing any jobs that come their way, with varying degrees of legality; from simple movement of goods to scavenging, theft and smuggling. Obviously, although some of their work is morally dubious, they are still the honest, loveable bandit type of the Robin Hood mould.
The movie Serenity focuses heavily on River’s story, and answers lots of exciting questions you will never know you needed to ask unless you watch the series or read Karate Party’s upcoming Firefly episode guide. The movie is true to the series, and while not disappointing fans is entirely accessible to those who have yet to see the series (as proved by Karate Party’s entirely scientific study - currently awaiting peer review).
 The movie kicks off (so to speak) with River beating the snot out of a bar full of surly blokes before nearly shooting Mal. It transpires that the Alliance is broadcasting subliminal messages over the television channels all across the galaxy in an effort to trip pre-set triggers in River’s brain and thus have her create enough of a scene that they can ascertain her whereabouts. As the crew of Serenity get closer to uncovering the secret hidden deep inside River’s subconscious, they are tailed by a ruthless Alliance operative. This operative is one of the more interesting movie villains to crop up recently. A true believer in the Alliance, he has convinced himself that his deeds, however evil, will lay the foundations for a perfect future society. To this end, he kills innocents without mercy merely to flush out his prey, even while accepting that his evil will deny him a place in his hoped-for future society.
Serenity’s quest to discover River’s secret takes the crew through the most heavily Reaver-infested space in the galaxy. Reavers, for those unfamiliar with the series, are insane, murderous space-pirate types, who lurk around the far reaches of civilisation. The Reaver menace forms an important part of the film, and the Reavers themselves are more fleshed-out than they were in the series.
This really is a must-see movie, or at least it is for anyone with taste. It has beautiful effects, and wonderful counterpoints between dramatic tension and humour. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry – sometimes simultaneously.
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