The Principals: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudky, Adam Baldwin, Joss Whedon.
The Premise: Everyone knows that Firefly died before its time, but most didn’t realize this until it was too late. DVD sales of the series were so incredible however that Universal decided to take a chance on the film. It didn’t really pay off for them (in box office dollars, at least) even with a reduced budget, but the cast and crew got one last shot at glory.
Here, we watch as the crew of the Serenity, a motley group of space pirates, seek to protect one of their own against a government agent who wants her back.
Is It Good: It’s ok.
In taking the acclaimed tv show to a film they poorly chose to focus on the single most boring character from the show, River Tam, and what’s more- turn the waif of a woman into an action star. It didn’t work for Milla Jovavich, it doesn’t work here.
No.
The other (far more interesting members) of the cast don’t get nearly enough to do, and the whole “bounty hunter trying to nab River” thing was done better in
the last Firefly episode (“Objects in Space”). While it was nice to
finally see the Reavers and find out why people were so terrified of them, but like most times when old work is revisited they sought to overexplain everything.
Is It Worth A Look: It is, to a point. There doesn’t seem to be enough introduction to the characters for newcomers to really get a handle on them, and the larger vision and story of the film makes the feeling of the show suffer. Sure, the action sequences easily trump anything that Firefly had to offer (it’s amazing what a decent effects budget can do!) but the real meat of the show was always the banter between the characters, the incredibly witty dialogue and interactions. Fans will want to watch it just to see how the characters end up, though- in knowing that this was their last hurrah they really didn’t pull any punches on the main cast.
Random Anecdotes: Consider me a very late convert to Firefly, but thanks to the magic of Netflix Instant (and the prodding of a friend) I finally watched the far too short series, and was blown away. I never really took a shine to Buffy or Angel, but this, this space Western… this I could get behind. It’s just an incredible show, filled with memorable characters and episodes. “Out of Gas” in particular, which might be one of my favorite hours of television ever.
But jumping right into Serenity afterwards left me feeling sadly cold, like maybe I’d have been better off not knowing what happened next. It’s why the Arrested Development film feels like such a bad idea… sometimes things die and people move on, leaving no way to recapture that magic.
Cinematc Soulmates: Battlestar Galactica, Gattaca, Stargate.