I liked how the reviewer added the ship itself in the personae dramatic at the end. For someone who has never seen a JW product, much less the Firefly series, to nod at 'the 10th character' in a review suggests that Joss did his job well. I love it when people do their jobs well almost as much as I hate when they do them poorly, thank you Joss.

Wow, that's a great article. The Maoist bit is kind of interesting to think about, and it's nice to hear someone who doesn't go "what? why is there chinese, I'm so confuuused..."

Gothamist loves Serenity, too...

[link]

But wait ... there's more, such as worthwhile holdovers like A History of Violence and Serenity, the latter of which -- with its resounding critical approval and tons of buzz -- surprised us with its poor showing at the box office last week, barely able to crack $10 million and utterly failing at challenging Jodie Foster and a jumbo jet for the top spot. With all these options (and more), what's a poor movie-lover to do?

the only joke that was actually being enjoyed in a good-natured manner by the characters (as opposed to the audience).

That was something that would have been nice to see, another prank. Yeah, there wasn't any space to cram it in there, but it would have been nice to see the crew pull another prank on someone. Possibly Simon again.

And I never watched Firefly, the UPN cult series that more or less gave birth to Serenity.

Hellooo, fact-checkers at the National Review, hellooo....

But really how funny to have Fox confused with UPN.

Oh, I can see how very easy a mistake it was to make. Serenity is a Universal property, so obviously Firefly must have broadcast on their network.

I don't even care about that error. It's such a birth-of-a-fanboy review I find the whole thing just adorable. I want to pinch its cheeks, Maoism ruminations and all.

YAY! I have seen Serenity! At long last!

Thoroughly enjoyed it. :)

As did one of my best mates, who has never seen Firefly, but who I found sitting in the second row as an eager Whedon Fan, as I entered the cinema for our first local screening - He scared the hell outta me! I had no idea he would be there. :)

Well, the film's getting good reviews in the UK so far. The BBC show Film 2005 loved it, and the presenter hadn't seen Firefly.

[link]

My overriding thought as the credits rolled was: "Why on earth couldn't the three most recent Star Wars films have been a third as good as this.?" With its swashbuckling fun and occasional moments of intelligent heroics this film has the qualities which the early instalments in George Lucas's saga possessed, and which the later ones so horribly lacked.

On another BBC show, it gets the film of the week.

Random paraphrasing:

If the TV series was half as good as this film, it makes you wonder what the TV bosses were thinking.

If you are tired of the infantileness of Star Wars, this witty film is for you.

Right, I should think about leaving soon to get to the cinema. I'm glad that I've seen the film already (well, duh), as it means that I won't have to spend a week catching up with this thread!

Christianity Today has collected Serenity reviews by Christian reviewers. Overall, it's been quite positively received. [link]

The Serenity review excerpts and links are grouped together, and make up the first 1/3 or so of the page. SPOILER AVERSE WARNING: Reviews for other films follow.