Rent Serenity (2005)

Recommended even if you haven't watched Firefly (though you ought to watch that anyway) - Serenity review by CP Customer

This is like the best ever episode of Firefly - funny and clever with shocks, thrills and tears along the way. The cast are all great and Chiwetel Ejiofor does a fantastic job as the evangelical murderous bad-guy, The Operative. And, finally, two of the big mysteries are kind of solved - what's with River and what about the Reavers?

Even if you don't know what any of that means, Serenity's well worth seeing, and can be appreciated just as you can enjoy a Star Trek movie without knowing Spock from Pickard. The Serenity universe is much more human than the Star Trek one though, and full of the incredible detail and human drama that Joss Whedon does so brilliantly. As he says on the extras, these people are the ones that The Enterprise would pass by at warp speed without noticing.

So, I really recommend it. However, if you think you're going to love this space-western of heroic bandits, evil government and messed-up telepathic fighting-machine teenage girls, then start with the Firefly series, as watching this first might give away a bit too much.

Entertaining Space Adventure - Serenity review by GI

A visually spectacular science fiction adventure film in a similar vein to the Star Wars franchise and the Guardians Of the Galaxy series. It must help to have watched the TV series Firefly of which this is a final film after that series was cancelled where the background to the whole thing will make this much clearer. The story of the characters is better understood I suppose although you can watch this as a stand alone film without having first checked out the earlier series. It's a standard sci-fi extravaganza with the crew of a small ship led by Mal (Nathan Fillion) speeding round the galaxy during a period of war. They have on board a young girl, River (Summer Glau) who has some special powers and is sought after by the ruthless Operative (Chiwetel Eijofor) and everyone is chased by a horde of zombie like space pirates named Reavers. There's plenty of fights and shooting and it's all done very seriously, indeed the lack of humour is very evident. It's a fan loved film and no doubt was intended for a few follow ups that seem never to have materialised. It looks good and there's some neat effects but it's average compared to similar and more popular films of this sort.