Serenity
is suitable for non-IT audiences.
From start to finish, Joss Whedon's Serenity is nothing but triumphantly messy formulaic fun, with an unexpectedly witty script and characters that suck you in immediately, even before the opening credits. It's gloriously over-the-top space opera-and relationship-driven sci-fi of a kind seldom seen on the big screen since Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
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You don't have to have been a fan of Whedon's short-lived, much-mourned sci-fi series
Firefly
to appreciate the setup, either. Even non-geeks can pretty much hit the ground running: There's your standard evil empire (the Alliance), your basic scrappy and unsuccessful rebels (the Independents) and, you know, your run-of-the-mill horde of cannibalistic berserkers (the Reavers, who dine indiscriminately on whoever is unlucky enough to cross into their airspace). The
Serenity
itself, a battered, temperamental spaceship à la the Millennium Falcon, is manned by a comfortingly familiar crew: Captain Mal (Nathan Fillion, stuck with the James T Kirk lines like "My ship! My crew!"), whom we're to understand is a maverick cowboy because he drawls and wears a leather gunslinger's belt; his capable second in command, fierce and womanly warrior Zoe (Gina Torres); her hot-shot pilot husband, helmsman Wash (Alan Tudyk); the begrimed Keeley (Jewel Staite), an oversexed young engineer; and Jayne (Adam Baldwin), a hunk of mercenary muscle. When the crew gives haven to a doctor (Sean Maher) and his telepathic, physically deadly, mentally frail sister River (Summer Glau, executing martial dance moves not seen since Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi last flew across rooftops), they find themselves pursued by just about everyone in the known universe, including an operative of the Alliance (Chiwetel Ejiofor) determined to kill River, and anyone else who happens to be in the way.
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Serenity
's successful not because of its original characters (they aren't), its flawless special effects (they're rustic at best) or its perfectly realized period details (apparently in the future, people vacillate between speaking Mandarin and some kind of antebellum hillbilly-talk). No, it's primarily Whedon's mordantly hilarious script (no surprise to
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
fans), an ineffable chemistry among his ensemble cast and some gripping pacing. Whereas George Lucas took some of the more interesting actors of our time, dressed them up in fancy costumes and then forced them to play statues, Whedon's savvy enough to scruff up his heroes and send them racing desperately around, sarcastic in the fact of utter, terrifying peril. It's sci-fi made with paper clips and string; and, miraculously, the whole shebang flies.
