I’ve heard from this film a while ago – bought it via play.com and had it for several weeks (if not months) lying around. But yesterday I finally found some time after a quite tiring business-trip and it kept me awake – over a time even thrilled.
Serenity is interesting – a science-fiction movie very much like a combination of Star-Trek and Babylon 5. The dark and partly cruel culture of Shadows (Babylon 5) are the so called Reavers that dwell in the outer space territories – the Earth Alliance (Babylon 5) would be very much the same alliance in Serenity, too.
I very much liked the beginning of the movie, with a cruel, devoted antagonist that has some interesting sides and I think is one of the reasons you might watch the film.
Secondly the crew and plot-outline are quite creative and give you a good laugh, a quick depression, a lot of action and a few deeper thoughts every now and then. So you get a good mixture of emotions served on a silver plate.
River tends to be interesting in her decisions – as well as the captain who is confronted more often with situations of harsh words and needed decisions than Kirk and Picard in the whole series of Star Trek movies.
So final conclusion: Sci-Fi-wise there has been a lot of material already and you should not expect that Serenity is the ultimate innovation – for it makes good use of factions and elements that have been in other films and other places before. Still these were converted very interestingly and serve for a good motion-picture and might give you a good entertainment for an evening.