Firefly

Serenity - Best SF Film in Years

Not only is Serenity the best science fiction film since The Matrix, it is also one of the best films of the year, in any genre. A low-tech space western with no aliens or laser guns, Serenity is a follow-up to the prematurely cancelled TV series Firefly, but remains easily accessible to the casual viewer. Created by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), the world of Serenity is political realist’s version of Star Wars in which the rebels lost and the governing authority isn’t a cackling evil empire but an ostensibly benevolent democracy, the Alliance.

The film focuses on the adventures of the scofflaw crew of Serenity, a small smuggling ship owned by Captain Malcolm ’Mal’ Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), an unreconstructed rebel veteran of the failed war of independence. Serenity has picked up a dangerous passenger - unstable pubescent psychic prodigy River Tam (Summer Glau), who’s on the run with her brother after he rescued her from a covert Alliance training facility. A ruthless Alliance agent, concerned that River may have learned about dark Alliance secrets with her psychic powers, is in hot pursuit. This doesn’t sit well with hardheaded Mal, who doesn’t cotton to Alliance authority one bit and eventually declares, "No more running. I aim to misbehave." Pairing roller-coaster thrills with an intelligent political plot about abuse of power, Serenity offers hilarious quips, chases, romance, gunfights, fistfights, swordfights, space battles, run-ins with cannibalistic Reavers, and a sophisticated philosophical subtext.