Serenity

Warning: contains spoilers

I love this movie. Love love love! Of course I'm biased, because I think Joss Whedon is a god. I'm addicted to Buffy and I actually went out and bought the Firefly DVDs. I know trivia. I've had the date marked on my calendar (yes, really) for months. I actually say 'Oh my Joss' in conversation. Been waiting for Serenity for so long!

And it was worth it. Totally worth it. Fantastic film! Great opening to set it up, because otherwise, without having watched the series, you might be in the dark. But in the first five minutes, without repeating anything from the series, you've got the basics of who everyone is and, more importantly, the plot has been set up: The war between the Alliance and the Independants, the Alliance's experiments on River, Simon's rescue of her. Who is after River. What she can do. Who Mal and his crew are up against. Okay, not the first five minutes, but in a timely fashion.

River kicks ass. It's strange because she's so tiny (I saw her at Collectormania on Saturday: tiny person!) and I think Summer Glau is trained as a dancer, but she looks damn good in a fight! An absolute dervish, making the fight into a dance, impeccable moves and timing. Fights are generally good in this film, incidentally, beautifully choreographed, and even occasionally funny where Jayne is involved.

Ah yes. Jayne. Possibly my favourite character. Belligerent, bullish, badly-educated, beautiful Jayne. Okay, maybe not beautiful, but it started with the right letter. I definitely wouldn't kick him out though. He gets some of the best lines of the movie (when Zoe tells the crew they probably won't live through the Reavers' attack, he looks stricken and says, "I might!").

I'm officially not talking to Joss for killing Wash, though. Yeah. Wash! I love Wash! So did Zoe. We never got to find out what it was they saw in each other, precisely (unless it's a Jessica/Roger Rabbit thing). They're the Xander/Anya of the crew; only Zoe has a little more loyalty.

Mal's one of the best characters. After he's brought a damaged River back on board the ship, albeit in handcuffs, the crew demands to know why, when he seemed perfectly happy for River and Simon to leave, but he just doesn't have an answer. But it's there in his face. They're his crew. As Zoe points out, during the war they'd never have left anyone behind. Mal tells her that's probably why they lost; but he still goes back for River.

He does what's right. His name says it all: Mal. Malcontent. Malajusted. Malaised. But down inside that bitter veteran, pirate of the outer rim, bank robber (fabulous scenes at the start of the film) he is good, even if he doesn't want to be. Which I suspect he doesn't.

Okay, enough eulogising. Go see the film. Really, it rocks. It's funny, it's smart, it's exciting, it's sad, it's scary (really scary in places!). It's all the things Buffy was. Plus, it has spaceships. Who doesn't love spaceships?

Joss, you can thank me later.