Serenity vs X-Men

There's a major subplot missing from the Star Wars prequels. George Lucas mistakenly thought Darth Vader was the character we were most curious about, when really, who among us was wondering what he was like as a kid? Who wondered about his mom, or his boss or his braid? Didn't we—and I'm positive we did—really want to know how Han Solo scored the Millennium Falcon, and how he met Chewbacca and Lando, and what kind of trouble he was getting into before he was chauffeuring Jedi around the galaxy? The chin scar! The vest! We need to know where he got the vest!

And we got nothing. Three movies and not even a hint. But with Serenity, the new movie from Joss Whedon, we have what I think could safely be called Han Solo: The Early Years. It's a good time, and earns a spot on your shelf, say, in between Episodes 3 and 4.

But wait, you say, Serenity is not a Star Wars movie, it's the film continuation of the brilliant-yet-cancelled television show, Firefly. You wanna relax with that? Seriously. I know it was a good show. It's clever and well-acted and probably shouldn't have been cancelled. Firefly was kind of like James Dean or Janis Joplin. Around just long enough to make an impact, but not long enough to screw up. Dude, James Dean was very talented, but it's only three movies. Given decades, I'm sure he would have made a few Dennis Hopper choices here or there. And likewise, Firefly eventually would have lost some of you, around season six, and you'd be taking it out on the nearest message board. For those doubters among you, maybe you want to watch the last two seasons of The X-Files and get back to me?

Anyway, Firefly lasted eleven episodes, and its creator, Joss Whedon was angry and bitter and not done telling his story. Serenity is his response, falling somewhere between reintroduction for those who didn't watch the show and Season 2 for those who did.

That's a bit of a lie. I keep hearing that it doesn't matter if you've seen the show, but it does. If you haven't seen the show, there are characters that will have little impact on you (and since some are appearing for the last time, it'd be nice if they made an impact. They don't.) I've seen most of the show (no, not all of it. I've got a message board, go to it.), so I was fine. Serenity is pretty fun.

Nathan Fillian plays Mal, the Captain of Serenity. Mal is a war vet, a cynic, a smart-ass, a bad-ass and a loyal friend. See? He's Han Solo. His crew is made up of his pilot, Wash; Wash's wife Zoe; Jayne, who has the most guns and wisecracks (he's Chewbacca); Kaylee, the mechanic and techie; and two tagalongs, Simon, the ship's doctor and his sister River, who is the mysterious reason the movie exists at all. There's also a preacher and a whore, but they show up later and in different contexts than in the show, so revealing that they have a prior connection to Serenity's crew counts as spoiler.

River's secrets are some of the movie's biggest secrets, so I'll not spoil them here either, other than to say she's a total badass weirdo and I might love her a little. Seriously, between her, gun-toting Zoe, and Kaylee fixing everything, Joss Whedon has packed Serenity with more girl power than anything I've seen in years besides maybe Kill Bill, and not just the cutsie Look-she-has-a-small-gun variety. Is it too late for him to direct the Charlie's Angels movies?

Visually, Serenity is cool, if not necessarily innovative. The main draw effects-wise for me was River, who moves like a cross between little girls in ballet class and Ziyi Zhang in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I also like the old-school sci-fi stuff, like when the crew is escaping the cannibalistic, zombie-ish Reavers in a convertible hovercar thing and do the everybody-lean-left/everybody-lean-right/everybody-lean-back thing that you did in chairs when you were a kid playing spaceship. And, there's a moment when the Reavers have pushed our heroes back into a hallway, so the good guys close off exits, leaving them to just shoot and shoot and shoot at a doorway, which ratchets up the tension a little, but also saves on budget considerably, since the set is just a couple walls and some smoke.

The plot is pretty standard TV Sci-Fi, in the best way: the rag-tag group of rebels sneaking across the galaxy, the mysterious stowaways, the Big Brother-style government. The secrets, the lies, the cannibals. We've seen it all before, but rarely this fun, and rarely with this much heart or wit (which falls closer to clever than funny, but it's such a welcome relief in wake of the stuffy Matrix movies and the boring Star Wars prequels that I'll take wit in any form you got). Captain Mal is a great character, all conflicted and funny and smarter than he seems. He has to take on an enhanced bad guy known only as The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor, from Dirty Pretty Things), and the fights are funny, brutal and quick. There are moments near the end when Serenity gets downright moving, and for those of us who were just seeking a Han Solo fix, that's a pretty nice surprise.

Like Serenity, X-Men has its roots in a different medium. And like Serenity, you'll enjoy it more if you've dipped into that other medium a bit. It's not necessary to read comic books to enjoy X-Men, but it's necessary to read comic books to appreciate it.

X-Men, like Serenity, is packed with characters—many of them badass females—but focuses on two. There's the Captain Mal Character, Wolverine, and the mysterious, quiet River girl, Rogue. Wolverine and Rogue get the bulk of the plot, with everyone else pitching in to help with their battles and wearing bad wigs.

I really like X-Men, but without the comics, it's sort of just for fun; X2 is the true draw in the series, in terms of effects, characterizations and story. But it started here.

Wolverine is a cage-fighter, he meets Rogue, who is a runaway mutant. They fight bad-guys, they meet the X-Men, they learn to trust other people. Along the way, there are a few riveting action moments and in Rogue and Wolverine's pasts, some genuine pathos and emotion. There's also pro-wresters, models and stuntmen playing the villains, “You know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?” and a fake foam-rubber interior for the Statue of Liberty. I mean, come on, let's call a spade a spade. Serenity is a TV show, X-Men is a comic book, and there's nothing wrong with either of those things. Turning them into movies just isn't as smooth a transition as you might wish.

For me, X-Men is mainly just for the rush, for the joy of seeing super-heroes alive off the page. For Ian McKellen's performance as Magneto, for Mystique climbing up a chain upside-down, for the fight at the subway station. Everything minor and awkward and questionable about it is fixed in the sequel, which rocks. Something tells me the same might be true of Serenity, which probably has less to fix in the first place.

Serenity: B+
X-Men: B