Post 70

I just watched Serenity. One of my roommates owns it, and my supervisor at work (whom I am awfully fond of--not romantically, mind you; he is a guy, and I am not, in fact, gay, though Post 3 has been raising some eyebrows of late, I assure you that what little sexual drive I have is aimed at the female population)--anyway, one of my roommates owns it, and my supervisor highly recommended it to me, so I watched it.

To make this review as fair as possible, let me throw my bias out on the table now: I am not a fan of speculative fiction; fantasy and sci-fi don't really do much for me (for details regarding that, read any of my three posts labeled Harry Potter). So, regardless of any quality elements Serenity had, it was, for me, a hard pill to swallow because of how shallow the cup is wherein I keep my willing suspension of disbelief.

That said, I'll attempt a good review.

[Quick sidenote: expect a gradual but dramatic improvement in the depth and intelligence of movie reviews on this blog; I'm taking a class that is essentially a course in how to write movie reviews, and I'm really excited about it. Also, for that same reason, expect an increased number of reviews. Whereas movies are a large part of modern literature, I feel that becoming well-watched is as noble a goal as becoming well-read.]

Serenity is a pretty intense flick. If you're into action-adventure stuff, it's a good one for that. And the camera work actually did a lot to accentuate that--which really impressed me since camera work tends to get in the way of the action in movies these days. Some of the transitions between scenes were very effective--especially early on in the movie. Overall, cinematography was pretty good, so no complaints there.

Characters were solid though almost static. Mal, I think, was the character who showed the most progression, and, surprisingly, The Operative's conversion at the end felt pretty natural. Often in movies, a highly contrived-feeling turnaround is required for a villain to see the light (for an especially bad example, watch the second National Treasure movie--actually, don't watch it; just take my word that it was a bad movie). The rest of the characters struck me as mostly inert, and the romantic element was so out-of-the-blue that I can't imagine that anyone who saw that movie didn't think, "Aw, c'MON! Gimme a break; this is ridiculous."

The plot was--good enough. I hesitate to say anything about it because--well, I guess I've already said something, so I ought to explain myself. I'm hesitant to talk about plot because Serenity is a follow-up to a series that I haven't seen. Nevertheless, the movie stands well alone; I didn't feel as though there was any back story that I was missing--which makes me a wonder a little bit about how well it works with the prematurely canceled show. Anyway, the plot was not bad--very science-fictional, but not bad.

The only thing that really annoyed me about the movie was the way the characters talked. Most of the time, they spoke normal, American English, but some of the phrases they used were--delivered well but awkward to listen to. For example, "In earnest, Mal, why are we--" and "She's damaging my calm!" These are the sorts of lines that I, as a a nonbeliever of speculative fiction, perceive as words penned by a writer who was thinking, "These people are from a different world, so even though they're speaking English, they have to have other-worldly cliches and catchphrases." I dunno; just rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps because the first attempt I ever made at a novel was a fantasy story, and I did that very same thing, so that's just one element of writing that sends up the This-Was-Written-by-a-Developing-Author red flag in my mind.

Anyway, Serenity is a solid movie if you're in to sci-fi; if sci-fi isn't your thing, like it isn't mine, then you probably won't enjoy it too much.