I've now had a couple weeks to reflect on the film, and I think I decided that I kinda-sorta liked it, with reservations.

I think the major issue I had was the dialogue. Not having seen a lot of the show I was a little new to the universe, but still very familiar with Whedon's style (having seen every episode of Buffy and Angel and liking most of it... the fourth season fo Angel was awful, but other than that a pretty solid body of work). I think that his penchant for cutesy dialogue (using words like 'somnambulant' and having the ship's mechanic talk about 'nary anything betwixt my legs that wasn't battery operated' stand out for me as particulary bad decisions in scriptwriting) really hurt the film for me. I didn't know these characters, and having them talk like that made them seem like just that, characters -- not real people. On the other hand, there were a few moments that rang very true -- when Caleb (Nathan Fillion -- Mal maybe? not good on the names) and Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin) were in the ship and they had the exchange about "Do you think you can run this ship?" "Yes" "Well... you can't" -- that played very natural to me. But for every instance where things seemed natural there were about five where they seemed forced.

This is a trend with Joss though, because his writing is always somewhat hit or miss when taken on its own -- he's a brilliant collaborator, which why I think his work in series television thrives. When coupled with people like David Greenwalt, Jane Espenson, Marti Noxon, etc. his work stands out -- when given hours and hours of time to develop characters you get used to the way they talk in the Whedonverse. However, throwing the Firelfy/Serenity dialogue at a new viewer is jarring and made me acutely aware that I was watching a movie the whole time -- for me, great film makes you forget that. (The audience didn't help in that regard either -- loudly laughing at things that were marginally chuckle-worthy, clapping a lot, etc...) In regards to being taken out of the narrative, everytime I seemed to be getting into things something would happen either on or off screen that would take me out of the narrative -- reminds me of the my experience seeing Two Towers the first time -- even with the choppily-edited Rohan sequences in the theatrical cut, I'm getting into Helm's Deep, really being enveloped in the whole thing and Peter Jackson makes two crucial missteps that pull me out of the LotR world entirely -- first he uses the "Wilhelm Scream" way too prominently, showcases it practically and secondly he has Legolas "shield-board" down a set of steps. Hated it, couldn't get into the movie again, didn't see it again until the DVD hit (this from the guy who saw Fellowship like four times and did the 14+ hour marathon theatrical viewing of Fellowship:EE, TwoTowers:EE and Return of the King, and followed that up by seeing Return of the King again the next morning and again that weekend).

Anyway, back to Joss. I was really into the plot of the film, a lot of the aspects were nice and interesting -- I liked the bad guy a lot. The death of the pilot guy and the old black preacher guy really didn't do anything for me -- I realize that his is most likely because I didn't watch the show, but I seem to recall Joss saying that he wanted to make the movie work for folks who had never seen Firefly. I think he really failed at that when it came to making you care about the characters. The dialogue is part of that, but there are also a few things he did early on that just made me roll my eyes -- one that jumps out is the completely obvious crush that the mechanic girl has on the doctor guy. It was handled without any subtlety and clumsily, not what I'd expect from Joss who has written strong females roles very well in the past.

Writing aside, his direction was ok. Effects wise he had some very nice things going on. I was expecting a bit more from shot selections -- they were.. pedestrian is the best word I can think of -- uninspired. Having seen episodes of Buffy that Joss had directed (Hush, The Body, Once More... and the season 4 finale all come to mind) that played out like film school theme projects, I was expecting something similar from this film. I didn't get it. One of the interesting things about Alfred Hitchcock, who is certainly in my top ten as far as directors go -- maybe top five -- is that he would often play with the medium and make directorial choices simply to make a statement on some trendy aspect of film theory or gimmicky Hollywood thing going on. For example, "Dial M for Murder" -- Universal had decreed that Hitch make a movie in 3D. Hitch thought that was ridiculous and said "Ok, I'm going to do this one." The movie takes place entirely in one room. With Rope he experimented and did a film as one continuous take, much like a stage play, only cutting when the film ran out of the camera (once every 20 minutes). Vertigo (which, if you haven't seen, you should) is a direct commentary on an essay that places voyuerism as a sexual act that exists only in males -- Rear Window also deals with voyuerism, but on a much more straightforward level.

There is only one shot that stands out in my mind in Serenity -- whereas I can call up in my mind several shots from The Body at will -- Buffy coming in to the house, the way Joyce is laying on the couch on the edge of the frame, barely seen to the viewer and unseen to her daughter; the way Joss holds the frame steady as Buffy goes out to vomit -- leaving us trapped in the house as she gets a momentary escape; the vampire fight in the morgue at the end -- that episode is so brilliantly directed that it's hard for me to accept that it's directed by the same guy who helmed Serenity.

The one shot that does stick out in my from Serenity -- they're on the Reaver planet and they're beginning to see bodies, etc. The camera cuts to Animal Mother, and then starts circling around him again and again -- let me tell you, I really loved that shot the first time I saw it when it was at the end of Werner Herzog's "Aguirre: The Wrath of God." That Joss so shamelessly lifted this shot (you can call it homage, I consider it theft in this case -- because I don't think that shot needed to be in Joss's film -- I can see him watching Aguirre and saying "what a cool shot, I should use that somewhere" -- there's no purpose, no context for that shot to be in the film at that point). Again, another case where I was pulled out of the narrative.

So those are my collected thoughts on Serentiy and Joss. I think Wonder Woman is his next project -- I'm interested in seeing how he does with a character that is not his own in the context of a film (hopefully a better job than he did on the screenplay to Alien: Resurrection). We'll see.

And I realize now that it may seem like I'm trashing the movie, I'm not. It just wasn't nearly as good as I expected it to be, or as everyone is saying it is. Good story, but not a lot else worked for me. I think that Whedon is capable of much better work as a director. I gave it a B- or so because there were a lot of aspects that I liked... but I really have no desire to see it again.

It's also written on the "car" that Jayne looks into. The one he says didn't even crash.