It's been years since I first watched Firefly, years of being completely unable to find Serenity on a streaming service. Well, I finally saw it, and while much has changed since then, I still thought it was pretty great.
Before I start praising Serenity, I do want to get the Whedon-shaped elephant out of the room once and for all. So every since I wrote my Buffy reviews, it has since been revealed that Joss Whedon is a pretty awful person. I mean, we all knew that he was a jerk and that some of his works like Buffy and "Joss-tice League" had production issues, but these past few years have been pretty sobering, between stories of abuse and toxicity from Ray Fisher, Charisma Carpenter, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jason Momoa, Amber Benson, and even his own ex-wife. It's always a gut punch when someone you look up to turns out to be a horrible person but Joss Whedon hit me the hardest because I looked up to him as a screenwriter. Buffy is my favorite show, and it sucks that it's been permanently stained by this fact. However, Buffy will still be my favorite show, and while his work has been rightfully looked at a lot more critically, I still think Whedon is a good writer. There are some aspects to most of his stuff that hasn't aged well in the slightest, and I've made sure to be aware of that, but stuff like Buffy, Firefly, and especially The Avengers are much greater than him. Since last year, I've been trying to give more credit to everyone in Buffy's massive writer's room, many of whom have gone on to work on amazing series like 24, Lost, and Daredevil. So here's my stance: Joss Whedon sucks, and I won't support any of his future stuff. But, his being a bad person doesn't make stuff like Buffy and Firefly bad as well, and even with that cracked lens, I still enjoyed Serenity immensely.
I think the most impressive thing about Serenity is how economical it is. It manages to introduce newcomers to the show's universe, bring all of its major storylines to a head, and give all of its characters time to shine all in the film's less than two hour runtime while still not feeling rushed. This film basically chronicles Serenity's fight with the Alliance to stop them from kidnapping the psychic River Tam, and is fittingly high stakes and large in scale. This storyline works, especially once we get that genius reveal that the terrifying Reavers were created by the government itself, and the main villain, The Objective, is really intimidating. As much as "snarky meta writing" has been criticized lately, I think Serenity does a good job at not going too far with it. None of the dramatic moments are interrupted by a joke (looking at you, MCU), and there are plenty of calm character moments scattered throughout the film. However, there are definitely some cases where you can feel Whedon getting a bit self-indulgant. This is generally a funny film, but there were definitely some jokes that didn't sit too well with me, notably anything involving Mr Universe. I also found both death scenes to be like they were there more for shock factor than anything else, even if Wash's death did admittedly hit me pretty hard.
On a production level, Serenity is pretty fantastic. The cast is still as great as ever, and Nathan Fillion continues to prove that he makes a fantastic action hero. Summer Glau acts her heart out as River as usual, Alan Tudyk and Gina Torres killed it during Wash's death scene, and Chiwetel Ejiofor is terrifying as The Objective. The Firefly universe does an amazing job of adapting to the big screen, with more detailed sets and environments, much better special effects, and really dynamic lighting. Given how much the Star Trek films can struggle to adapt for its movies, it's impressive how well Firefly managed to nail that transition in its first attempt. The action scenes probably got the biggest jump in quality, though. The fights in the original series were fairly standard TV show fare, but that first chase scene with the Reavers alone was leagues better and more intricate than anything from Firefly. Something that really stuck with me about Serenity was its willingness to go for sheer unadulterated Rule Of Cool, from Wash piloting Serenity through a space battle to River killing an entire room of bad guys off screen. I have a lot of respect for a movie that's willing to be shamelessly badass.
Overall, while it can be a bit self-indulgant with its death scenes at times, Serenity is a worthy finale to Firefly that brings all of its major conflicts to a head while still being well-paced and accessible to newcomers. With a great cast, mostly strong script, and seriously improved production values, Serenity was still pretty gorram fantastic.
4/5 Stars
