SERENITY (3+ outta 5 stars) Yes, the filmmakers would like everyone to believe that this movie can be enjoyed without having seen the short-lived TV series "Firefly" (of which this is a continuation) but now that the movie has had it's chance to score at the box office the truth needs to come out: there is very little point to seeing this movie if you haven't seen the original 13 episodes (or at least *some* of them). It's kind of like watching the last episode of M*A*S*H or The Fugitive or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer without any basic knowledge of the show's history: you are just not going to get maximum enjoyment out of it. As I was watching the movie I was trying to look at it from the perspective of someone who had never seen the show before and who had no idea who these characters were. Frankly, I think the movie tries so hard to tie up loose ends from the series that the story doesn't really become fully realized. Series characters seem to be shoe-horned in (even when they have no real function in the story) just because fans of the show will expect them to be there. Compare the cast of "Serenity" to the cast of the first "Alien" movie: everything you need to know about the ship's crew of "Alien" is explained through their dialogue and actions as the movie progresses... in "Serenity" the crew's back story is too complex to be conveyed simply to a potentially new audience. But... enough complaining! While I don't think the movie really works as a stand-alone film... I think it is among one of the finest wrap-ups to a TV series I have ever seen. It is much better crafted and satisfying than director Joss Whedon's "Buffy" and "Angel" finales. The new character of the "The Operative" (Chiwetel Ejiofor) steals the movie with his quiet intensity... a memorable and more-cerebral-than-usual movie villain. The final confrontation turns into too much of a by-the-numbers movie climax (hero and villain meet on a high catwalk as the clock counts down to zero hour/ hero drops his gun, forcing a hand to hand confrontation/ villain beats crap out of hero until all seems lost) but by the end it manages to confound all modern-day action movie expectations.
