Serenity Reviews

[nerd4hire]

I just noticed the reviews at rottentomatoes.com have sky rocketed up to 80% positive.

Here's a few blurbs I copied:

Hot Pick
"A lot more sweaty fun than the last three overhyped, sterile, for-dorks-only Star Wars cartoons."
-- Connie Ogle, MIAMI HERALD





Cream of the Crop
FRESH 86%


Avg. Rating: 7.1/10
"Serenity is a trim little picture of epic proportions."
-- Stephanie Zacharek, SALON.COM

"A space spectacle resonant with witty dialogue, accessible characters and kaleidoscopic action."
-- Philip Wuntch, DALLAS MORNING NEWS

"As always, Whedon's sci-fi fantasies smartly parallel the serious issues we're grappling with here on Earth, while his protagonists remain mordantly funny in the face of utter disaster."
-- Elizabeth Weitzman, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Whedon works plenty of smart pop-culture references into his genre-jumping script."
-- Bob Townsend, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

"Half a millennium after Neil Armstrong's one small step for mankind and we're back in the saddle again."
-- Desson Thomson, WASHINGTON POST

"Serenity flies with sass and spirit, qualities that have been in palpably short supply in that Star Wars series since, well, Star Wars."
-- Jan Stuart, NEWSDAY

"Serenity is so like TV that it ought to come with a clicker so we can switch over to the next movie at the multiplex."
-- Kyle Smith, NEW YORK POST

"Whedon, who always delights in blending genres and tones, has assembled his most frantically disparate collection of pop culture quotations, boldly and cleverly going where plenty have gone before."
-- Matt Singer, VILLAGE VOICE

"A good old-fashioned space opera."
-- Michael Senft, ARIZONA REPUBLIC

"A kicky mix of space-movie mayhem and cowboy-movie corn."
-- Steven Rea, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/serenity/

 

[goldenboy]

Now I guess we get to see if the critics and/or word-of-mouth truly has an impact and Serenity gets to stay in the theaters awhile.

 

[ProphecyGirl]

I hadn't checked out RT. 86% fresh? niiiiice.

 

[goldenboy]

Here's a fun read from Orson Scott Card. He's a little over-the-top in his praise, I think. But anyways...

Think about this: Hamlet has a lot of violence and death, intrigue and betrayal; it's downright gothic. In fact, if you hadn't already been told it was a "great work" and somebody told you the plot, you'd think, what a bunch of junk.

Only it isn't, is it? And why? Because, of course, it's very well written -- but more than that, it's about something. Relationships and moral dilemmas and -- oh, wait, I've already given you that list.

Lots of sense-of-wonder (oooooh, a ghost!) and sudden shocks (don't kill the man behind the curtain!) and grim deaths (Ophelia did what?) and the gratuitously macabre (oh, look, let's play with a dead friend's skull) -- but it holds together because it's about something.

Well, not only is Serenity about something, it's also extremely well written. Joss Whedon has invented a kind of weird future slang that is still perfectly intelligible but is different, with snatches of foreign languages and obsolete English words that make it clear that it's not ordinary English they're speaking.

The effect of this -- at least in Whedon's deft hands -- is to allow himself something of the kind of heroic language that was possible for Shakespeare -- and for Tolkien. It allows him to be eloquent.

And then he turns around and deliberately clanks with some humorously abrupt language that makes us laugh for the sheer startlement of it. Just as Shakespeare did, when he'd drop from blank verse to the funny coarseness of comic prose.

Will everyone like it? Not a chance. It really is too strong for some people -- there are indeed dead bodies and cruelty and unspeakable violence, and you don't want to deal with the nightmares that young children will have. Plus the storyline is smart enough and mature enough that some people simply won't get it. Can't be helped -- it's all there on the screen, though.

Charlie Kaufman's movies have been great science fiction, but without being completely open and accessible to the mainstream audience.

Joss Whedon is not as artistically edgy, but is every bit as inventive, and he has the common touch. Like Shakespeare, he doesn't have to show off to prove himself an artist, he only has to tell the story his way, and the art takes care of itself.

http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2005-09-30-extra.shtml

 

[Anchovy]

I think OSC is the ONLY critic who really gets the movie. I didn't think (upon reading the full review) that he had seen the show, but he GETS it. he understands why we love it. And I expect no less from the man who gave us Ender's Game and Speaker fro the Dead.

 

[goldenboy]

Yeah, you know, I had kinda wanted to amend my little Serenity review in terms of themes. Yes, rugged individualism, individual liberty is there for sure"”kind of a superficial political tone throughout. But more fundamentally, it's something like the inner conflict people have between freedom and responsibility. Balancing the desire for personal freedom with the basic need to reach out to others and build something worth living, dying for. The circle of people that Mal really cares about seems to go from fellow soldier Zoe at the beginning of the show, then on to his entire crew, then finally all the vicims of the Alliance's schemes. He reclaims much of his lost idealism by the end of the movie.

OSC is right that relationships and moral dilemmas are what make great stories"”regardless of genre.