Day Thirty-Three: Serenity

SERENITY

Starring:
-Nathan Fillion
-Alan Tudyk
-Adam Baldwin
-Summer Glau
-Gina Torres

Written & Directed by: Joss Whedon

MPAA Rating: PG-13 – sequences of violence and action, some sexual reference


Everyone in the ‘verse knows that Joss Whedon’s space cowboy cult hit is the little show that could. After its cancellation, fury exploded like hell hath no and mercifully, this movie was made. Without further ado...

That black guy from LOVE ACTUALLY rolls in and kills three or four people. He’s on the trail of Simon and River Tam, the brother/sister team who found a home on Captain Mal Reynold’s adorable little spaceship Serenity (classification: Firefly). Also on board you’ll find Jane, the tanned, sweaty muscle man with a penchant for weapons and beating the crap out of people, Kaylee the mechanic, Inara the hooker, Wash the pilot, and Wash’s butt-kicking Amazonian wife Zooey.

Mal and his comrades stop off at a little planet to rob a bank when UH OH! Suddenly there’s a Reaver attack! For all you losers out there who don’t like campy science fiction movies, Reavers are bad news. They’re cannibals and stuff. They’ll eat you and make suits of your skin and for some reason it’s rumored they’ll rape you for hours, which seems to contradict the age old admonition not to play with your food.

“You shoot me if they take me! Well, don’t shoot me first!” – Jane

The gang makes it back safely to the ship and Simon’s pretty pissed that Mal put his little sister in danger, so he informs everyone that he and River are leaving at the next port. The crew docks and heads to a bar to reap payment for their bank raid, but River gets some subliminal messaging from a commercial, says “Miranda” and goes nuts and starts beating up on everybody. And so begins the Joss Whedon commentary on life. Anyway, River’s kicking everybody’s butt and finally Simon shows up, says a few cryptic safe words, and River drops like a leaf.

Bad Black Guy from the Alliance watches all of this unwind via security feed on his ship. He seems pleased.

Back on Serenity, Mal has handcuffed River and is confronting Simon about her crazy behavior. Sweet darling Alan Tudyk suggests they contact Mr. Universe, who is the equivalent of a teenage hacker who just happens to know everything that ever happens online. Mr. Universe confirms that River received a subliminal message from high military Alliance.

“I don’t know what I’m saying. I never know what I’m saying.” – River

Yeah, join the club, River. I do love some of Summer Glau’s facial expressions. When Simon asks her if she’s Miranda, she gives him the world’s most perfect “No, you idiot” look.

I forgot to mention, Mr. Universe also has a “lovebot” which is creepy and intriguing all at the same time.

Anyway, the crew travels to the planet of poor, dirty orphans, where Shepherd Book has been hiding out. Book used to cruise around with them, but that was back in the days when he had an Afro. These day’s he’s got a goatee and a mean set of cornrows.

Anyway, Inara sends Mal an uncomfortable wave message, which the rest of the crew secretly watches. Mal and Zooey think it’s obvious the message was a trap, but romantic Kaylee would rather believe that Inara just wants to see Mal.

Mal: Ya’ll were watching I take it?
Zooey: Yes
Mal: Did you see us fight?
Kaylee: No.
Mal: Trap.

Mal goes to rescue Inara (assuming she needs it) and she warns him that he cannot handle Big Black Alliance Man from LOVE ACTUALLY. Bad Guy tells Mal he’ll let him go as long as he turns over River. They fight. Inara is a hardcore chick, and she placed a bomb on the altar instead of incense, so when it explodes she and Mal escape to her ship and make it back to Serenity.

Summer breaks free in order to show them the location and information on the planet Miranda. The crew ponders this new development as they land on the Shepherd’s planet. Everything has been blown up. Stuff is smoking and there are dead kids lying all over. Mal runs up on Shepherd, who is dying. Boo hoo. I mean, I guess I’m a little sad. I liked him okay. Anyway, he’s got some cool dying words.

“I don’t care what you believe. Just believe in it.” - Book

The crew learns that the Black Alliance dude has murdered all of their former allies, and those who once sheltered them. Bad Guy promises more of the same until Mal turns over River. Mal hangs up on him, then has the crew help him disguise Serenity as a Reaver ship so they can pass through the dangerous territory and reach Miranda unharmed. Mal’s plan works and they sail through an entire fleet of Reaver ships unscathed.

Up to this point, the theory has been that Miranda failed the terraforming process, rendering the planet unlivable and all the settlers died. But now that they’ve arrived, Mal and the gang see that everything is totally normal here…except for all the decomposing bodies lying around everywhere. This is quite literally a city of the dead. Corpses in office buildings lie sprawled across their computer keyboards and desks. We get it, Joss, we get it. Sheesh.

The power has no planet, but they do manage to locate a tiny beacon. They find its source, and a hologram appears. A tearful woman shows them some images of Miranda’s dead and explains that G23 was added to the air to clam the population and weed out aggression. The people stopping fighting, then they stopped everything else, like going to work, breeding, talking, and eating. They just sat and let themselves die. According to the hologram, 10% of the population had a different reaction to the G23 and became violent to the point of madness. This helpfully explains where the Reavers came from and why the Alliance seems so adamant about insisting they don’t exist.

At last the crew realizes that this is why the Alliance is so crazy to kill River. She knows the secret of Miranda. So Mal’s plan is to get the hologram to Mr. Universe so that he can broadcast it all around. Sadly, the Bad Guy had this thought, too, so Alliance swoops in and Bad Guy kills poor geeky Universe man while his lovebot looks on, unaffected.

With both Reaver ships and the Alliance on their tails, Wash deftly navigates through all of it because he is awesome like that.

“I’m a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.” – Wash

Sadly, they’ve been forced to overdo things and their engine is totally fried. They do an emergency crash landing and everything seems fine until a Reaver harpoon comes busting into the cockpit and kills WASH!

I HATE YOU, JOSS WHEDON!

The crew rolls in to find Mr. Universe dead, sprawled across his lovebot’s lap. Lucky for him, Mr. U used the bot to record his last words to Mal, instructions on how to find his backup equipment and broadcast the message about Miranda. The Reavers are all around trying to get in and eat everybody, and Bad Guy shows up for an epic fight.

Most everybody has gotten hurt at this point, and if you’re like me you’re thinking “Wow, Whedon is going to kill every single person I have ever loved or cared about.” And you are right. He’s probably hunting down your mom right now.

River now has the chance to prove her usefulness and save the day, so she staves off the Reavers and grabs her big bro’s medical bag to patch everybody up. Mal defeats the bad guy but doesn’t kill him. Instead he straps him to a railing and forces him to watch the broadcast of the Miranda beacon over and over again. Mal hobbles back to his badly bruised crew and finds that River is a total badass. Seriously. It’s great. Of course the Alliance takes the opportunity to burst in and aim their weapons at everybody, but Bad Guy tells them to stand down because they’re finished.

Cut to a dramatic valley shot where we review our dead and Zooey finally looks sad about her dead husband.

Everybody patches up the ship and gives it a shiny new paint job, Simon and Kaylee finally get nasty, and the Bad Guy shows up again to tell Mal that they aren’t out of danger, but he won’t be on their tail anymore. Inara decides to stay and River signs on to copilot the ship with Mal.

All in all, this film does what it was intended to do: provide diehard fans and viewers with some much-needed closure. That isn’t to say that I’m not furious to see Joss The Bastard Whedon kill the love of my Firefly life, Hoban Washburne. So while this is an exciting and well-written science fiction adventure flick, I am so sticking with my worn out Firefly DVDs.

Know why? Three words.

Alan Tudyk, baby.


FINAL GRADE: A-

Off in search of my toy collection,

M.