Late To the Party

I just spent a very enjoyable two hours watching the coolest movie I've seen in a long time. I'm talking about Serenity, a spin-off, or maybe just a continuation, of the cancelled Firefly series on Fox.

I know that the Geek Universe has loved this movie (and series) for some time, but I never saw a single episode. And I heard good things about the film on several occasions, also. I even put in on my Amazon wishlist a few months back, sight unseen. So a couple months ago when I saw that it was playing on Showtime, I tivo'd it. But it's just been sitting there taking up space on my DVR since like October, and I finally got around to watching it today.

I'm glad I did--it was just short of spectacular. Normally I hate hate hate science fiction. I never liked reading it in high school or college, and only did it when assigned to. I'm anti-Star Trek in any incarnation, and was so disappointed in Attack of the Clones that I refused to see The Phantom Menace. Star Wars is basically dead to me after the original trilogy. Trekkies, as they like to be called, are as off-putting as strident Mormons--they both dedicate their lives to learning every bit of minutia about something that some dude just made up--and for the most part are socially inept unless surrounded by other true believers. I just can't hang with people that take fiction so seriously. And since most of the hard-core science fiction fans in the world are uber-nerds on the order of the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons, I've stayed away for the most part.

But I have to make an exception for Serenity. It may technically fall under the 'science fiction' genre because it takes place mostly on a space ship, but it's a very thinly-disguised western with the most clever dialogue this side of Pulp Fiction or O Brother Where Art Thou. I found myself laughing out loud several times, unlike pretty much every Ben Stiller 'comedy' I've had the bad sense to try and sit through.

I loved the characters, it was a good story that moved along at a good pace, and the special effects were just good enough that they didn't overpower the enjoyable script. I rate it just below Raiders of the Lost Ark, as one of those timeless action/adventure movies that can be watched over and over again.

Mikey