An action packed space romp that doesn't take itself too seriously. 'Firefly' is one of many shows that Fox was too cowardly not to cancel, but that they should really have trusted. Thankfully the series got a movie to help wrap it up, and I don't know about y'all, but I found it pretty enjoyable.
"This is the captain. We're having a little problem with our entry
sequence, we may experience some slight turbulence - and then.. explode."
This is Joss Whedon at his best script writing. The jokes are fast, quirky, and hilarious. This is something that hasn't been lost with time, exactly, but is different now. The jokes in things like 'The Avengers' are funny, but not as fast and... sort of cheeky, I guess, as they were in this and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'.
So this is a relatively young Whedon. My favourite flavour of Whedon.
The whole style is very fast and sharp. It's a sci-fi movie for sci-fi movie fans, and there are lots of almost-references to the genre. A lot of the plot is made up of setting events up, only to twist the outcome unexpectedly, and then laughing at the viewer's surprise. It is very aware of itself, giving it a touch of 'A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' type feeling, but this it mixes with the adventurous style of 'Star Trek', the awesome space battles of 'Star Wars', the greasy, steam punky road battles of 'Mad Max' and the well choreographed fluid fighting of 'Hero' (at least River Tam's fighting).
The style is much like that of the show, but the budget has obviously ballooned. The scenes on the dead planet were particularly creepy, as everyone just lay down and died. The bleached white pearly clean surroundings are contrasted excellently by the masses of bodies, and the result is haunting. We also see a lot of classic Whedon camerawork. One of the opening scenes is spectacular. As we are introduced to each member of the crew, the camera sweeps from room to room. A one-take sequence that lasts several minutes. Also I should mention the space battles, which are great, and more true to science than many other sci-fi movies (lack of sound), though there are still lots of fire in their explosions, which is fair enough.
The script is awesome, and the chemistry between every member of the crew is brilliant. There are countless funny moments. One of my favourite scenes was where the captain awkwardly talks to a girl he likes over an intercom, and the rest of the crew are (of course) watching. As he says that one of them really misses her, they all go "aww" and someone throws their popcorn at the screen.
Tam is also surprisingly hilarious in many scenes. Her usual deadpan performance breaks as she occasionally makes a goofy face in response to someone's question. The serious implication from her brother that she had a split personality was brilliant, as her reaction said everything that any viewer would be saying about the possibility of this cliche.
"Do you want to run this ship?!" "Yes" "...Well... You can't" was also great, as were many of the back and forths between the captain and Cobb. Cobb's slowness was good, his best moment in this was thinking that Tam's safe word would put literally anyone to sleep. The writing is great, is my point. Seriously good.
The style is much like that of the show, but the budget has obviously ballooned. The scenes on the dead planet were particularly creepy, as everyone just lay down and died. The bleached white pearly clean surroundings are contrasted excellently by the masses of bodies, and the result is haunting. We also see a lot of classic Whedon camerawork. One of the opening scenes is spectacular. As we are introduced to each member of the crew, the camera sweeps from room to room. A one-take sequence that lasts several minutes. Also I should mention the space battles, which are great, and more true to science than many other sci-fi movies (lack of sound), though there are still lots of fire in their explosions, which is fair enough.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
The script is awesome, and the chemistry between every member of the crew is brilliant. There are countless funny moments. One of my favourite scenes was where the captain awkwardly talks to a girl he likes over an intercom, and the rest of the crew are (of course) watching. As he says that one of them really misses her, they all go "aww" and someone throws their popcorn at the screen.
Tam is also surprisingly hilarious in many scenes. Her usual deadpan performance breaks as she occasionally makes a goofy face in response to someone's question. The serious implication from her brother that she had a split personality was brilliant, as her reaction said everything that any viewer would be saying about the possibility of this cliche.
"Do you want to run this ship?!" "Yes" "...Well... You can't" was also great, as were many of the back and forths between the captain and Cobb. Cobb's slowness was good, his best moment in this was thinking that Tam's safe word would put literally anyone to sleep. The writing is great, is my point. Seriously good.
Oh yeah, and River Tam is played by Summer Glau, who's basically my favourite thing ever.
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| Her food is problematic. |
The action doesn't infringe on character development, however. For those who are not familiar with the main cast, they are introduced briefly, and many develop as the film progresses. The villains are believable too; they know what they are doing is justified, and while I was never exactly torn as a viewer, I could always easily see both sides. I particularly liked the character of The Operative played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. He does a great job at bringing the intelligent, slightly conflicted agent to life, and he makes for a great villain.
The film is filled with larger than life characters (too many to list all in detail here), yet it balances them well and the ending effect isn't too goofy as to outweigh the serious elements of the movie. They seem to follow the rule of convergence that is explored thoroughly in Steven Erikson's 'Malazan Book of the Fallen' (I'm not sure if it was him that invented this rule, but he certainly has a lot to say on the subject). The rule is basically that power attracts power, and so main forces will eventually come together and clash, as they do in this movie (in a very satisfying way). The whole crew perform brilliantly, but my favourite character (apart from River Tam, obviously) is Mr. Universe.
I like his style, a little like a futuristic Howard from 'The Big Bang Theory'. I also like his set up: living in his own personal moon surrounded by screens and hacking tech, with a fembot forever reclining on a massive sofa behind him wearing a tacky prom dress. I like him so much that a GIF of him is on the title page of this blog. His death hurt the most, for me. My heart wept as he crawled into the arms of his blankly smiling robot, and when the Captain finds him later he is still there, his head resting in her lap. His recorded message, spoken by the fembot whenever someone comes withing proximity, is both tragic and haunting, and both Mr. Universe's character and his demise has stuck with me years after my first viewing of the movie.
"You can't stop the signal."
It occurs to me now that this blog could be taken as an insight into my own personality, with elements like what characters I like (both like like I like Mr. Universe and like like I like River Tam (like, likelike - and all of that made sense)) and stories and styles that I am drawn to reflecting on me in ways that I wouldn't purposefully tell anyone. I expect that this newfound openness is subliminally deliberate, and while the thought of strangers knowing me this well isn't a particularly fun one to entertain, I doubt anyone reads all of these anyway, and it's not like it's on the front page, right?
I put "Western" down as a tag for this one, as it undoubtedly has many aspects of one. It works very well, at one point the captain even draws faster than the Operative, in a classic stand off situation.
I put "Western" down as a tag for this one, as it undoubtedly has many aspects of one. It works very well, at one point the captain even draws faster than the Operative, in a classic stand off situation.
Well that got a little too personal for my liking, so I'll wrap it up now. The action sequences are excellent, the effects are state of the art (as good as Star Wars III, which came out in the same year) and the conclusion is just perfect. An exciting, fun, funny sci-fi movie, with a little heart and horror to boot.
Serenity: 80.0