Both a fantastic coda to Firefly and still unsatisfying, Serenity is bound to leave a weird taste in your mouth if you’re a fan. Mostly because I think any amount of this series/world will always leave you wanting more.
3 years after the cult favorite show was canned, the gang got back together for a feature length continuation. Luckily, all of what made the series special is intact here. The superb character writing, the charmingly bad special effects, plus layers…
Somehow better than Gladiator II. This seems like a series that started for purely cynical reasons (let’s cash in on a brand name) but turned into a consistent, heartfelt family action comedy along the way. Even the bad parts are fun. Everyone involved seems to enjoy being here. Needs more Wade Whipple, positive villain-minion dynamics, and Dragonball Z fights.
I’ll say this. It is not perfect. You absolutely need to watch the 26 episodes to understand what the hell is going on. It sags at the middle, mostly due to some bizarre structural choices (an actual intermission with a credits sequence???). Its third act is notorious, and has the whole movie come dangerously close to disappearing up Anno’s ass.
However.
If you hand the reigns to an auteur weirdo and they’re talented enough, they can legitimately push out a…
Rarely you get something so tapped into its target audience and tone. Even rarer when it’s something that’s designed to be such an insane shitpiece.
Have some dynamite lines, an over-saturated world, and a few girls running riot? You’ll have a good comedy.
Give it an actual edge and make the whole thing genuinely gross? You might have something special.
Do it almost 50 years ago? You enter the twisted (and hallowed) halls of John Waters, one of the few…
