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Movie Review
Movie Review Serenity (2005)
Saturday, August 20, 2005 at 10:21PM 
Its decent SCIFI... but somehow it seems wrong
| Overall Grade: | C+ |
| Story: | B |
| Acting: | C |
| Direction: | C |
| Visuals: | C |
The characters are so plastic, I kept waiting for the Saran Wrap man to jump out and announce he personally hermetically sealed all the characters in this movie.
The action is interesting, but quickly gets unimpressive. The level of action/martial arts in action films today is so high that second rate attempts at action like this look lame in comparison. The graphics and effects are also average, which in a sci-fi is usually about half the reason we all go.
The best thing in this film was just looking for all the blatant "Star Wars" cliches and situations this film tries to rip off. It's one thing if it is homage to a great predecessor. But this film totally pays no homage and just tries to wrangle a laugh or heartstring by copying the same ethos and touch as Lucas created in the original episode 4 of the Star Wars trilogy. Using phrases like "territories in the outer rim", creating Mos Eisly-like cantina scenes, and trying to develop a supporting character into a likeable rogue mercenary with a breaking-down space ship and a princess love interest (ya, another attempt at Han Solo, this time his name is "Malcom Reynolds")- these references are so blatant they are annoying and don't endear anyone to the film.
The only wonder left in my mind when I walked out of this film was wondering how quickly Lucasarts was going to sue the sorry butts off Universal Studios for this cheap looting of the sci-fi thought farm from StarWars.
If you have time, nothing else to watch, and someone else is renting it, this film is worth waisting a couple hours on.
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