Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another early look at SERENITY from fanboy demi-god, Joss Whedon. I never got sucked into the Buffy explosion, although I tried hard... I watched at least a season and half worth of episodes from early in the run and it just didn't do much for me. Whedon's previous cinema contributions are a mixed bag for me. He wrote the worst ALIEN film (it may even be worse than Paul W.S. Anderson's rape of the series), but he also wrote the original BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER which I dug, but mostly because of Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer and Pee-Wee. So, I don't know how I'm going to react to SERENITY, but I hope it's something I love. I certainly like watching good movies more than I like watching bad movies. Here's a review for ya' to chew on. Enjoy!
Hey Harry,
Just returned home from a test screening of "Serenity" in Thousand Oaks, California. I was invited to attend by a friend, who simply told me that he had passes to get to a sneak preview of a science-fiction, action/adventure movie coming out later this year. There was no other information given, so I assumed the film would be something like War of the Worlds or possibly The Island, although the possibility of Serenity popped in my head after I had viewed the trailer yesterday.
To be honest with you, I was a little disappointed when I found out the movie being shown was going to be Serenity. I had watched the trailer on Quicktime yesterday, and while the film looked like it was well made in the trailer, it just didn't appeal to me at all. I'm not a huge sci-fi star-warsy fan, but I'm damn glad I stayed to check out this film.
To sum it up, this film was absolutley incredible. The CG in the movie was amazing, and while the ships and planets, etc. didn't look TOO realistic, they didn't look too cheasy as to take away from the film. Joss Whedon wrote and directed an EXCELLENT film, and the acting was absolutley superb. As I mentioned, I'm not a big sci-fi fan, but the movie appeals to so many different genres. The ladies in the audience gave constant applause and woo's to the countless jokes aimed at the female crowed, and the entire crowd roared at the comedic timing of the jokes. Maybe it was just the crowd I saw it with, but the laughter during many of the jokes would rival that of a Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler movie.
I won't go into too many specifics, I don't want to give away much of the plot, nor do I want to try to verbalize the amazing piece of cinematography that Joss Whedon has put together. Typically, some of the effects weren't done, but for the most part everything looked pretty solid. If marketed correctly, this is going to be a sure-fire hit, and I highly recommend that anyone that has the ability to check out the screenings next week do so.
If you choose to use this, call me Bill. And just for the record, I'm not a "studio plant," nor do I have any association with the film industry whatsoever. Everytime I send in reviews for movies that I'm really passionate about or really enjoy, I always get flamed for being overly positive. But this movie was really really good, and deserves all the praise.
