Just thought I'd write a quick blog to enthuse about the film from Joss Whedon called Serenity - it opened in the UK last weekend and we popped to the Vue cinema at Starcity (Birmingham) to see it on Friday night. It was a fabulous film - even if you hadn't seen the short-lived Firefly TV series "prequel", there was enough back story in there to make the film feel complete and flesh out the characters to the point that you could understand them.
The most refreshing thing about the film is the amount of emotion it manages to convey across the screen. All too often I've sat through films that didn't make you give a damn about the characters (Star Wars Episode 3 springs to mind), so it was really great to see these people on the screen and care about them, about their lives, their plans, what happens to them, etc. And Joss Whedon is one of the best writers on the planet when it comes to female characters, which is very important when you have an ensemble cast that features four strong female characters with completely different personalities. Not that the male characters aren't equally important - they're all handled brilliantly (Nathan Fillion really does a fantastic job as Captain Reynolds, as does Adam Baldwin as Jayne).
Of course, if you see the film and haven't seen the TV show, you'll probably want to go out and buy some DVDs (or pop round to see a friend and borrow them) and see the back-story that Joss had carefully crafted. I really hope this isn't the last we'll see of the Serenity crew.