So, obviously, I enjoyed this movie.
I’m not going to go all Whedon fanboy on you, or anything, and write one of those “I want his babies” reviews I’ve been seeing around, but I will say that I thought the movie was great, and one of the better SF movies I’ve seen lately.
I don’t know how it would have played to someone who hadn’t seen Firefly, although it seems obvious that some of the moments (especially the deaths) would have had a much smaller impact on people who weren’t emotionally invested in the characters already. For those of us that had already spent quite a few hours with these characters, though, the movie was certainly rewarding.
I do enjoy Whedon’s humour, and there was a lot of that in the movie, both in terms of the directly funny stuff (“I could stand to hear more”, “I am a leaf”, etc.) but also in terms of the way he delighted in faking out the audience by feinting towards a cliche and then completely flipping it. The classic example here would be the “everyone ( but Kaylee) knows it’s a trap” bit.
I also quite enjoyed the way Whedon worked with the theme that people need something to believe in, and how he wove that into the idea of Mal’s personal moral/ethical vaccuum and his finding a bit of a compass versus the Operative going from a moral/ethical GPS to a non-entity. And, of course, the subtle hints that Book had been an Operative, lost his faith in the system and replaced it with Christianity…
When characters started dying, all of a sudden the stakes got turned up a notch–unlike a weekly TV series, there isn’t as much of a guarantee that characters will have to keep coming back in a feature, even one that people want to start a franchise. This was perfectly crafted in the final act, when the shocking death at the start of the scene means that we spend the entire final segement of the movie on the end of our seats, as it looks like EVERYONE is going to die… Extra bravo to Whedon for that.
(I keep saying Whedon, but the cast also deserves props. No one really gets a lot of screen time, but everyone was great within the space they had. Fillion, of course, stands out for his multi-layered portrayal of Mal, but both Baldwin and Glau should also get nods for their excellent comic ability. Summer’s “don’t be an idiot” face was perfect, and Jayne’s comments were always delivered optimally.)
I think there were a couple of failings, though. The invincible River scene is one–it would make it very hard for us to ever feel that River (or the crew, while they’re with her) is actually in jeopardy going forward. (I think the arrival of the guys with guns was meant to counteract that, to almost say “sure she can kill everyone if they are crazed hand-to-handers, but organized people with weapons that work at a distance could stop her”, but if that actually was the intention, it could have been executed a lot better.)
Also, as someone who watched the series, the failure to wrap up the “guys with blue hands” stuff, or the “Blue sun” stuff while theoretically doing the River story was a bit of a disappointment. I am told that this is addressed in the comic series that bridges Firefly to Serenity, so I guess I should reserve judgement until I see that.
Finally, two things I keep wondering about, that bother me a little:
1) While the Operative was unconscious from Inara’s flashbomb, why didn’t Mal just shoot him in the face?
2) When the Operative lost faith and had the guards stand down, and even helped with the rebuilding of Serenity, what the hell was the Parliament doing? Even if the Op said River had done her damage, why would they believe him–surely there are more than one possible dirty secret River could have picked up from the “key members” of Parliament?
So, the summary: Go see it.
