See what a great liar I am? The reality is I usually never admit to my mistakes and I bury the truth deep within the bowels of my soul, hoping that no one ever discovers my dark little secret. Alas, I made an error in judgment that I feel I need to address. Back in October I reviewed a movie called Serenity. I stick by my review for the most part. It’s my thoughts about the T.V. show Firefly that I wanted to amend.

As I said in my review, Firefly is the T.V. show leading up to the movie Serenity. I also mentioned that I watched it and hated it. However, I never really gave the show a fair shake. I only watched the first episode, which I read recently was never intended to be the first episode. Fox, in their infinite wisdom, decided to shuffle the order in which the series would be aired. After Serenity came out I decided to make good on my promise and give the show another chance. I am so glad I did. I rented all the discs from my local video store and watched the entire season in a week. I loved the show so much that I bought the DVD set and watched the entire season again. GEEK! I know, but it could possibly be one of the best sci-fi shows ever. As a matter of fact, I don’t think the term sci-fi best describes this show.

My initial reason for not liking the show was due to its western motif. I’m still not a huge fan of that per se, but the characters Joss Whedon created are so much greater than the environment they are in. The characters in Firefly are so entertaining and interesting (and completely original) that I quickly forgot what it was that turned me off about the show in the first place.

There, I’m glad I got that off my chest. Now I can sleep at night. I’m also half way through season 2 of BSG and I’m loving every second of it. For those of you have not yet seen it, I would highly recommend it. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m afraid I’ve already said too much.

So why did I go see this movie if I didn’t particularly like the TV show? Because I’m a sucker for space operas. I can’t not see them. While where at it I should admit to a couple of other soft spots I have. I love movies with women that kick ass, martial arts, and that showcase camaraderie. I tend to let my guard down a bit when when reviewing movies that have one or more of those characteristics. I’m ashamed to admit that there are more than a handful of movies that slipped into my DVD collection that otherwise would not be there considering my strict and often ruthless guideline to what I consider to be a great movie.

Serenity, to my pleasant surprise, had a bit of all four of those characteristics. Now that you know that, you must have deduced that I may be a bit wishy washy with this review and that you should take it with a grain of salt. I would agree with you. The movie had average special effects, sub-par acting, and a mediocre plot, but I still enjoyed it very much. It will definitely end up in my DVD collection. If you can get by the many flaws of the movie and strip away the layers of blah, what you have at the core is a fun shoot’m up space saga that does a good job of keeping you guessing. I would love to be able to rave about how great the special effects were and how deep the plot is, but I can’t. They were simply okay. But okay seemed to work just fine. Let’s get real for a second here. My grandmother isn’t coming to see this movie. As a matter of fact I can’t think of one member of my rather gigantic family that would come to see this movie. This movie isn’t for them. It’s for me and space geeks like me. And for us, it was a pretty fulfilling ride.

The cast of Serenity consists of the original cast of Firefly. You won’t see any Oscar nominations here, but the chemistry and the diversity of the actors seemed to work extremely well. As a rule I try not to get too deep about the plot or the characters in my movie reviews, but I feel I must mention Summer Glau. The movie is worth seeing just for her. Not necessarily her performance, but for the character she played. (Although her performance was hands down the best in the film.) She plays a character called River Tam. Let’s just say that she is what Jessica Alba’s character should have been in that other failure of a TV show, Dark Angel. Minus the psychic ability of course. I honestly got goose bumps watching some of her scenes. That’s all I’ll say though. You’ll have to see the movie for yourself to see what I mean.

I’m glad I saw Serenity and I would definitely go see the sequel. If I had to give it a tag line I would say it was a “fun-filled, adventurous space saga that is caught somewhere between cheesy and epic”. Kind of a broad statement I now, but I’m a bit out of practice. All in all I think Joss Wedon got it right. It makes me wonder if I was to harsh on the original Firefly series. I think it’s time to revisit the old show and give it a second chance. What the hell, it’s only $3.00 to rent at my local video store. Why not?

// Update: My new thoughts on Firefly //