Serenity

Serenity (2005) by Joss Whedon

I'm reviewing this film because I got into a debate with a Browncoat over this film. And you know what? You assholes are taking a good thing and blowing it up to proportions that it has no right being. Alright? This is a horrible film. Period. It fails as a film. Taken apart from the rest of the series (I admit I wasn't a fan until recently, but even now, despite that changing, I can still say this is a bad fucking movie), it doesn't hold up its own weight, much less that of an aborted television series that should have gotten another chance. Look, I'm a Star Trek fan, and I'm a James Bond fan; but even I can admit that more than half the Star Trek movies (including all of the Next Generation films) are Godawful, and that there are sadly more Moonrakers than From Russia With Loves when it comes to Bond. I can love a series more than the sum of its parts, and can acknowledge that even some of the films I do like are just as bad and dumb as you think, and will happily agree with you (the reboot of Star Trek, while enjoyable, is a fucking mess plot-wise, but still watchable and fun) just as I can like and appreciate FireFly while watching Serenity and thinking, "What a smelly piece of shit".
The opening scene shifts perspectives several times, from an omniscient, passive point-of-view, to becoming somewhat of a classroom-like overview, to changing its focus onto River (the equally bizarrely-named Summer Glau). While it was necessary to give new viewers an overview (I had only seen a vaguely admired the first 2 episodes when I first saw this film), the shifting point-of-view also makes it difficult for those same viewers to know who is doing what and why. The long-takes in Serenity itself introduced each character individually, but, again, due to the time constraints, they were played slightly more broadly than on the show, and as such, it did little justice to the characters themselves, who I now appreciate and enjoy, nor to the actors, who'd spent so much time developing their characters into individuals. Hell, even two of the characters are killed for what seems to be arbitrary reasons.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, what the fuck are you doing in this movie? Why are you hamming it up? And why does the set of your Alliance vessel look like something out of Space Mutiny? Where is the rest of your massive vessel? We only ever see about 3 rooms. As a villain, he was much too goofy and over-the-top to truly be terrifying and formidable, and the protracted fights (between him and Mal; River and pretty much everyone else in the movie) paradoxically stop the film cold. While the cinematography would have been impressive on the small screen, again, in a movie theater, it feels sadly confined.
I can imagine that the prospect of finishing an unfinished television series on a budget less than half of what typical sci-fi actioners traditionally go for (and what Universal was willing to supply), by a first-time feature film director who initially started with a script that was over 3 hours long...well, the final product feels rushed, confined, and oddly anticlimactic. If this film had been a television special, or mini-series or made-for-TV film, I would not have been so vehement. But the production design, music, and effects work are what killed the film for me, simply because the scale did not translate to "science fiction action Western feature film event!" This was SciFi Channel's The Shining remake: as dull, boring, and bereft of action that the budget would allow. They killed Book and Wash, and I didn't care (and, well, the characters didn't seem to care either. Hell, when Spock died, that added a heavy weight to the entire Star Trek series that needed another film to undo.) Here, two of the main characters die and there was no real time to mourn or move on, and their loss wasn't really felt after the film ended. I walked into the theater hoping to see what the big deal with the series was, and walked out not wanting to have anything to do with it.
Look, if you're going to kill off one of the main characters, it needs to mean something. Spock died to save every other character we love. Vader died to save Luke and, ultimately, redeem himself. Hell, even when the Terminator died in Terminator 2, it was after he'd developed as a character and made a fundamental change and made the audience root for him. Wash and Book died...okay. Did they make a personal change or sacrifice? No, Wash just crashed the ship trying to land it, because he did another crazy maneuver the ship wasn't designed to make. Now they have no ship. (Oh man! Now the stakes are raised! We don't know who'll live or who'll die!!!...*after the film*...Oh, nope. No, they just had nothing to do anymore. They weren't intrinsic to the plot).
And finally: why show the Reavers? The one thing that stuck with me in the show was the concept of the Reavers, and how fucking insane they are. Yet when they are (for whatever reason) revealed? They're like fucking Native American zombies. And their backstory sadly makes them less interesting (again, having unexplained evil threaten characters is so much more interesting: that's the difference between Silence Of The Lambs and Hannibal Rising; or Batman and The Dark Knight: getting to know the history of embodiments of evil makes them relative, and thus removes the veneer of danger and mystery they have). For an expansive universe that seemed to stretch out so much, with such an interesting rich fictional history on the series, the film pares everything down to a bite-sized chunk, where everything intertwines and is woven together in a neat package. The mess that was the gritty world of the series is replaced with low-budget facsimiles of sprawling sets and city-scapes, and an epic space battle that, sadly, I'd played back in the day during Colony Wars (where's the movie for that?!)

Serenity fails as a film. Period. It goes for the scope that it can't handle, and instead implodes into something much more confined and exclusive than it wanted to be. If it hoped to attract new fans...well, I doubt it did. I was indifferent to FireFly before I'd seen Serenity, but after Serenity, I wondered what the big fucking deal was and wanted nothing to do with either. I couldn't remember anything about the movie, and it took me looking up IMDB, wikiPedia, and watching the damn thing on YouTube to remember anything about the film aside from the main characters, Wash getting killed (I forgot Book dies too!), and the failure of showing the Reavers. If I walk out of a movie theater and forget what it was that I'd watched...guess what? That movie failed, even to entertain. It was a missed opportunity that I can't blame on Joss Whedon, who did everything he could for the show and the film, or the cast, who seemed to enjoy revisiting the characters one last time. But if this was to be a send-off, then make it Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country, not fucking Star Wars Episode III.

Tron: Legacy

Tron: Legacy (2010) Joseph Kosinski

I fucking hate this movie. Alright, so I never saw the original Tron, Disney's 1982 psuedo-experimental sci-fi film starring Jeff Bridges, but I understand enough of the plot to appreciate it for its stylistic approach: Jeff Bridges' Kevin Flynn gets sucked into a computer program he's created, and must survive long enough to find a way to escape. The film was the first to make extensive use of computer effects and is largely memorable for that (the effects which were used for the Disc Games: competitions where two people must fight for survival in a variety of lethal games, including the ever-popular light-cycle race), and for its visual style (characters are shot in video, with their faces filmed in black-and-white film. Looks great...but apparently has a plodding, slow-as-molasses plot and is revered as a cult classic merely for the sense of nostalgia it imparts. But it looks like this:



However, Disney still has yet to make it available for purchase. After this sequel, I can imagine why.

I had hope that knowing nothing about the previous film would make me impartial, and I had hoped that this film would also fill in all the blanks that I would inevitably have. The film does answer some questions, but not in any way that is exciting; the characters talk about the events in the previous film, and occasionally there is a flashback. But a lot of the time the characters just talk. They just fucking talk. They sit and talk. Like it was the fucking Star Wars prequels they sit down and talk.

I'll actually talk about the stuff I like first. This movie showcases Daft Punk and it really is their movie (even throwing them in for a cameo); if it weren't for their incredible score, I would have completely hated the film. The score was hypnotic, and almost constantly played in the background, and for that reason alone I found something to enjoy. Second, I also admired the production design of the Grid (the world of Tron): the cold, mechanical whites, blacks, oranges and blues were beautiful, and in 3D, really were an impressive sight (although it got a bit tired near the third act). The updating of the Games (3-dimensional multi-level light-cycle races; anti-gravity disc combat) were fun and exciting to watch. Um...Olivia Wilde was attractive...I guess? Now, on to all the stuff that made this film an agonizing ordeal. First off: what I can only jokingly call the plot.

The film opens with Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund)---the 27-year-old son of the long-lost Encom founder and computer wizard Kevin Flynn---breaking into Encom headquarters and leaking a copy of its latest operating program (which, the corporate head explains, was designed with flaws purposely built in). He gets cornered by security, and, right when he is about to be captured, jumps off the roof and parachutes to safety, and then drives off to his home (which happens to be a renovated storage container...it actually looked pretty cozy). Right off the bat, I had problems with this scene. The Encom executives react to the leaking of the software as if it would legitimately destroy their very existence; movies have yet to truly grasp the fact that leaking software (even operating software) really doesn't affect profit margin for computer companies, at least not in a crushingly catastrophic way. It happens literally every day. I'll let that one slide though, since I feel that most movie writers are still playing catch-up with the increasing rate of technological evolution. So, that being said, the scene also establishes Sam as being reckless, brash, and carrying a chip on his shoulder. That also wouldn't be a problem, except that is all he is. There is no more development to his character after this opening scene: he is established as an Archetype. You know, the reluctant hero! Joseph Campbell stuff! (WRITER: "You know, reckless! Like, he rides a motorcycle, and is angry with authority and fucks stuff up just because! An adrenaline junkie!" PRODUCER: "But...who is he? You're just saying adjectives, but not really telling me who this person is as a person." WRITER: "....a who?") This film has no less than FOUR credited writers, and has had 28 years to develop a story with relateable, interesting characters (fuck, I'm not looking for Sam Lowman or Charles Foster Kane...fucking R2D2 is more interesting than anyone in this film. At least give me a mobile, whistling garbage can), instead the main character is Reluctant Hero Version 2.

Now, through a series of events, Sam gets summoned to his father's abandoned Arcade, where the Tron game resides. He activates his father's old computer, and gets sucked into the Grid. Once there, he gets captured by a security program, and thrown into the Disc War games, where he must fight for survival. He undergoes the hand-to-hand disc game, and the multi-level light cycle race. These were easily the best scenes of the entire film. The film's villain, CLU (also played by Jeff Bridges, horribly rendered to look 28 years younger) is made aware of Sam's capture, and personally tries his hand at trying to kill him during the light cycle race after Rinzler (the star performer in the Disc War games) fails to do him in.

Then, Sam is saved by Quorra (Olivia Wilde), and eventually brought to Kevin Flynn, who is living in the outskirts of the Grid (off the grid. Clever.), apparently meditating or some shit for nearly 30 years. Through a series of events so boring I can't even really describe them because it's such a jumbled mess I can't remember what scenes happened in what order, Kevin gets his identity disc stolen, and this is a big deal because with the identity disc, CLU can leave the Grid and enter the real world, along with an army of programs designed to...do...stuff? Also, Quorra is a program who may or may not aid mankind somehow. Then the movie ends. Oh, and at some point Rinzler switches allegiances and helps the Flynns after a change of heart that is never-the-fuck explained.

Okay, so that's the story. I gave it away, and I don't give a shit. There's a lot there that doesn't make any sense. First off, CLU is horribly rendered, and it wouldn't be a problem (or so creepy in an uncanny valley sort of way) if the film didn't go out of its way to place him in the most brightly-lit scenes, thus accentuating how dead-eyed and fucking creepy he is (which may be the point? Since CLU is an un-aging program based on Kevin Flynn's younger self? And he should look like a program? Even though all the other programs---essentially everyone else in the movie---are played by normal human beings?) Anyway, the creepy-eyed CLU needs to find Kevin, and to do this he sucks Sam into the Grid in the hopes that Sam's appearance will cause Kevin to reveal himself. That makes sense...but then CLU actively tries to knowingly kill Sam during the Disc War games. In fact, it is literally the first thing he does, literally going out of his way to do so. CLU even explains how important both Kevin AND Sam are, to their faces...so why the fuck try to kill them the second they show up? Yeah, it makes for an exciting scene (the best, actually. Too bad they're all within the first 30 minutes of the film), but it doesn't make any fucking sense.

Next up: the ISOs. Isomorphic something-or-others. Essentially, they're living, self-conscious, aware programs that are basically living beings in a purely digital realm. Kevin explains their origins, and then goes on to explain how important they are. I'm paraphrasing, but he says they'll change religion, biology, medicine, etc. Except...we don't really know how. The ISOs don't really do anything, even within the context of the Grid. He just says they'll change the world.

The Grid: is it a city or an entire world? If it's a city, why is it always empty, except for security ships hovering around capturing rogue programs (who are basically just ISOs hunted for extermination)? There is NO ONE in any of the scenes set in the city streets, yet when Sam and Quorra go to see Zuse (an obnoxiously flamboyant Michael Sheen) in his club (club? Right? It was a club?), the place is packed, and when CLU needs to reveal his "army", there are fucking millions of them. From the few scenes I could piece together of the original Tron, the programs were like people, and had foibles and personalities. Here, the few programs we do meet are set up with the most basic of characterizations and show up only as needed by the plot.

What is CLU's intention? I understand that CLU wants to leave the Grid and get into the real world and continue his stated goal of ridding the world of what he sees as imperfections (in essence, wipe out humanity). But once in the real world, he ceases to be a threat. His army is armed with discs and poles. They wouldn't be able to do much damage to anyone out here in the world of guns and knives and nails-in-wooden-boards. And the mechanics of escaping the Grid aren't entirely clear...Sam and Quorra escape by standing on a tiny platform and holding onto each other as they are sucked up into the portal leading to the real world. Would CLU's army have to hold his hand and stand on the tiny platform too? Would they even be able to leave because they're not the fuck real people, but programs (Quorra could leave because she's an ISO and thus, effectively, a living creature)?

TRON. The original Tron was called Tron because it featured a character named Tron, who was apparently a pretty important character in that film. Tron is not in this movie. At all. (Rinzler is apparently Tron...but it is never explicitly stated, merely implied, and I think that's why Rinzler suddenly decides in the middle of a fucking mid-air dogfight to change sides...but I don't know. I'm just the audience member who didn't see the original film because it's not available on DVD or VHS. The characters never go out and say, "Hey! Rinzler is definitely Tron! And remember all that shit Tron did that was a big deal? Man, we need to get him back to our side! That'd be exciting and add some emotional weight to our adventure!...eh, fuck it. Let's do that in part 3.")

I understand and appreciate the subtext of the film: CLU represents the hacker ethos of free information; Sam and Kevin represent privatization and the desire for privacy and an identity that is unique, and how the contradiction of unfettered information and privacy leads to conflict. CLU can't even really be considered a true villain, since he is merely fulfilling the parameters of his programming, and once Kevin leaves the Grid...which is an active choice fueled by the realization that by creating CLU, he'd unleashed an unintentionally aggressive aspect of his personality, one fueled by the quest for all knowledge...and it's only when he and Kevin merge into one being that either of them can be at peace. In an age of an internet where one can literally get any piece of entertainment or knowledge or program right now, this is a pretty topical discussion to throw into a blockbuster film. For approaching that touchy subject, I give the film props. However, the film fails as a film, with too many plot holes and lapses in logic (even by its own standards) to really be purely entertaining. When the action kicks in, the film is delicious to look at, but when it comes to adding weight, pathos, and personality to the characters (or even originality or interest), director Kosinski fails. It's almost as if he can't be bothered, not when there's light cycles and light-sails and Olivia Wilde to look at!

It's a shame, because I went from being indifferent prior to the film's release, to being excited to see it, to being horribly disappointed in it (and actually pissed that it's taken up so much time for me to write this). There was so much that this film had going for it to make it great, and it looked great, and had an amazing score and utilized 3-D extremely well. But it had a shit story that killed all that potential. And that's the real pain of it all. This is another 3-D special effects extravaganza released in December that hopes audiences will be blown away by the effects to not notice that there is nothing at stake for any of the characters.

Look, I can enjoy a shitty movie just for fun (I gave Punisher:War Zone a glowing review, remember?) But that doesn't mean that I should have to shut my mind off completely just for the sake of bright lights and pretty production design. Even shitty movies I enjoy (Punisher: War Zone. Billy Madison. The Musketeer. Live Free Or Die Hard) have stakes and have a plot and have a story that push the characters and forces them to experience some sort of change. There are clear stakes, and there is a logic at play that is upheld throughout the film's runtime. I can get behind a bad movie if there is a story that makes sense, and if it is at least fun. Here, the characters are archetypes, pure and simple (Sam especially. It doesn't help that Garrett Hedlund didn't really do much with what he was given), and the plot doesn't make a lick of sense, and it is unashamed about that fact. The movie is lights and sounds and an incredible score and Jeff Bridges, dead-eyed Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, and Jesus-Michael-Sheen!-What-are-you-doing?

I wanted to get behind this film, but couldn't. Four writers and nearly three decades should have done something to make this better than what it was, or at least original (even Tron, as plodding and boring as it apparently is, is still remembered and original and at least tried something new, even if it did apparently fail). And it's a shame.

Oh, and one last thing: the use of hallucinogenic substances made this film (and the score, especially) bearable.

P.S. - in the theatre there were teenagers on their phones, talking loudly and fucking taking pictures. One teenager was apparently completely perplexed as to why Kevin Flynn didn't wear shoes at his home, and talked loudly about that fact for FIVE MINUTES. I fucking hate going to the movies sometimes.