The Squid & The Whale is a great film. It is well-written, well-acted, and taut. It deftly captures a slice of life in 1986 Brooklyn.

The Squid & The Whale is an awful film. It is depressing, self-indulgent, and obscene. It’s vapid, a total waste-of-time.

Which of those two statements actually describes The Squid & The Whale, one of the best-reviewed films of 2005? I suppose it depends on your point-of-view. It depends on what you think the purpose of cinema is, what you bring to the movie, and what you’re willing to tolerate in the name of art.

Here’s a plot summary (from Amazon):

The Squid and the Whale follows the divorce of Joan (Laura Linney) and Bernard Berkman (Jeff Daniels) as it wreaks havoc on the emotional lives of their two sons, Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline). Though there’s no plot in the usual sense, the movie progresses with growing emotional force from the separation into the bitter fighting between Joan and Bernard and the hapless, floundering behavior of Walt and Frank, who act out through plagiarism, sexual acts, and drinking.

Some viewers may find the ending too diffuse; others will appreciate that writer/director Noah Baumbach doesn’t wrap up the messiness of life in a false cinematic package. Either way, viewers will appreciate how the specificity of the personalities makes The Squid and the Whale so compelling, as Baumbach has drawn the characters with such detail, both engaging and off-putting, that they leap off the screen. Naturally, he’s greatly helped by the cast: Linney, Eisenberg, Kline, and especially Daniels bite into these often unsympathetic portraits and give fearlessly honest performances, interlocked in both painful and funny ways—rarely have family dynamics been captured so vividly. If there was an ensemble Oscar, this cast would deserve it.

When the credits began to roll, Kris turned to me and said, “That was pretty good.”

“No,” I said. “That was perfect.” I meant it. I think that The Squid & The Whale is brilliant. It has supplanted Good Night, and Good Luck. for the top spot on my Best Films of 2005 list. The Squid & The Whale is great in almost every sense, but I especially love the characters: they are three-dimensional, with clear motives, and they interact in wonderful, true ways. I also love the many telling, tiny details the film observes: the books on the shelves, the glances between lovers, the behavior of adolescents.

Yet I know several people who might have stood up and walked out on this film in the theater, or who would have stopped watching on DVD after half an hour. Why the difference in opinion? It’s a question that strikes to the heart of the way we view cinema in our lives.

The Squid & The Whale is one of a class of films: serious-minded mostly-independent movies that are more motivated by character than by plot. Sideways and Lost in Translation are two prominent examples of recent films of this nature. (Others include Junebug, In the Bedroom, and Welcome to the Dollhouse.)

I like these films because they’re grounded in Real Life. They show real people reacting in real ways to real situations. They show the tumult of emotions and decisions that make up day-to-day existence. They present complex characters, characters that possess elements of the good, elements of the bad, and elements of the ugly.

Because these films are character-driven rather than plot-driven, many people find them dull. But mostly, the people who dislike these films say one of two things: “This isn’t Real Life.” or “I don’t want to watch a movie about Real Life. Real Life is depressing enough. I go to the movies to escape.”

In response to the former, I want to say that these films do depict Real Life. They may not depict your life, but they depict the lives of real people in very real ways. I’m often shocked at how narrow a view of the world (even their immediate world) some people have. Their lives are normal, and they cannot imagine what it’s like to live differently. Are people actually so unaware as to realize that situations as portrayed in these films really are normal to somebody else?

In response to the latter, there’s not much I can say. If you look to cinema solely for entertainment, then these films are not for you. Cinema as entertainment is fine for what it is — escapism — but it does not have the power to tell us anything about ourselves. And it’s true that cinema as art does not always bring us joy, but what it can do is teach us something new about the world, and about people. To me, as a writer, it is much more impressive to read (or see) a story in which real people live and learn and change than it is to read (or see) a story about a giant monster rampaging loose in the middle of a city. Telling an entertaining story is easy; telling a story about Real Life is difficult.

Ultimately, there’s a place for all sorts of films. I only wish that more people would give these small character-driven films a chance. They really are things of beauty.

The more I know, the less I know.

That is to say, the more I learn, the more I realize that there’s so much I will never learn, that there’s so much to know and never enough time to know it all. Unsurprisingly, I have huge gaps in my knowledge. One of these gaps is North Korea.

Here’s what I know about North Korea: it’s a communist nation; the U.S. fought a thinly-veiled war against the Soviets with Korea as a staging ground; M*A*S*H was set in Korea; our President considers North Korea part of the Axis of Evil; the biggest nuclear threat to Portland is probably from North Korea. That’s it. That’s all I know. And some of that is probably wrong.

Because of this, it was eye-opening to watch A State of Mind, a recent documentary about one aspect of life in North Korea. Now I have a better understanding of North Korea as a nation, of its people and its culture.

A State of Mind (netflix)is nominally the story of two girls preparing to perform in the enormous gymnastics exhibition that is North Korea’s Mass Games. The film is about more than that, though. It’s about ideology. It’s about culture. It’s about family. It’s about privation. For ninety minutes, it transports the viewer into another world.

One strength of this film is that it is completely non-judgmental. It neither praises nor condemns communist North Korea, with its food rationing and its rolling blackouts. It neither praises nor condemns the blatant propaganda pushed by the State, or the Orwellian “always-on” radio in every household. When the lights come one evening after a blackout, one girl’s father shouts, “Dirty American Imperialists! This is their fault!” (or something similar).

The dedication with which these girls, aged eleven and thirteen, train for the Mass Games is remarkable. For months, they spend two hours every afternoon learning synchronized gymnastics moves with hundreds of other girls. In the weeks leading up to the event, they actually spend eight hours a day in training. The results are spectacular: a mass of human motion in which individuals are subsumed into a giant collective group organism capable of great beauty.

A State of Mind isn’t for everyone. I’m sure that many would find the film slow and tedious. I found it fascinating. It was like a travelogue to a hidden kingdom where cold Soviet-style architecture stood side-by-side with Japanese-style tradition. It was interesting to see some aspects of 1984 and Anthem made real. (It’s a chilling reminder of the direction this country is headed with all of the State-sponsored propaganda we’re fed, and especially the ongoing erosion of individual rights.)

Some North Korea-related links:

• Bizarre trip of a lifetime, in which a small group of American travelers is allowed inside the country.
• A gulag with nukes: inside North Korea.
• Grid-Locked, about the North Korean energy crisis.

Lastly, I’m hosting the A State of Mind trailer (right-click to download, or left-click to view in browser).

Obviously, this film is yet another in the series of documentaries that Kris and I have been watching. She admits that she, too, finds them fascinating. They’re generally much more fulfilling than a normal movie. I’d much rather watch a film like Mass Games than a film like King Kong or 40-Year-Old Virgin. Did I already ask you all to recommend documentaries for us? I don’t care: I’ll ask again. Tell me about documentaries that you loved, and I’ll add them to my Netflix queue.

The Gates girls and I went to see Brokeback Mountain on Saturday. It was a good film, amazingly faithful to Annie Proulx‘s short story. It may be the best adapted screenplay I’ve ever seen, but all the same, I’m not sure the film is Best Picture-material. The cinematography was fine (though not as spectacular as I’d been led to believe), the acting was fine (especially Heath Ledger), and the script was fine (though it softened the story some). Yet the film lacked greatness. It felt mundane in parts. If it were not a story of a homosexual love, it would likely considered unremarkable.

However, the film is a story of homosexual love, and is groundbreaking as the first major film to tackle these issues, to be produced with such quality, to garner such attention, and to achieve such critical acclaim. Maybe this context is enough to elevate the film to greatness. I don’t know. (My cousin Nick tells me he found the film incredibly sad, heartbreaking. He dreamed about it. Perhaps if I had not read the short story beforehand it might have affected me more.)

Because the film is so true to the story on which it is based, it’s interesting to note how differently I react to the two media. I first read the story a couple of years ago, and then re-read it after viewing the film. Each time, the story struck me like a hammer: it’s powerful, dense, and moving. It’s a finely honed piece of fiction. It’s focused.

The film exhibits some of these same qualities. At the same time, the film fleshes out certain story elements. In the story, which is primarily told from Ennis’ point of view, we only hear about Jack Twist’s life in Texas. We never see it first-hand. The film dramatizes Jack’s life, adding details that were only hinted at on the page. In the story, Alma plays a small but important role. She’s effectively de-emphasized, though, through skillful writing. It’s less possible to do that on the screen. I liked the actress who played her (though I don’t know who she is), and found myself paying more attention to her in the movie than I did in the story. I wanted to see more of her (as a character), to know more of her situation, to be shown more of her point of view. The movie felt especially strong when it was dealing with her reactions. I liked the screen Alma better than the story Alma.

I admit that I was worried that the scenes of hot gay sex would make me uncomfortable. There was only one such scene, and it was filled with shadows and textures, not remotely as graphic as the straight sex scenes found in many modern films. The scene did make me uncomfortable, and that’s my problem, but I dealt with it. (I long ago became inured to seeing two men kissing, but anything more makes me squirm. Does this make me homophobic? Does this make me gay? I think it means I’m normal.)

Brokeback Mountain is a good movie based on a great short story. You should read it. You can find it in the fantastic Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction (the best short story compilation I’ve ever read) or in Close Range, an Annie Proulx collection. (Also, I’ve posted a plaintext file of “Brokeback Mountain” here.)

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Kris and I have now seen two probable Best Picture nominees (the other being Capote). Both films were good, but not spectacular. We each agree that our favorite film of 2005 so far is Crash. (Crash was also Roger Ebert’s favorite of 2005.) Other 2005 films we may see in the coming weeks include: Hustle & Flow, Crash (again), The New World, Munich, Syriana, and Walk the Line.

Films coming soon that I am anxious to see include (links lead to trailers): She’s the Man (yes, really), The Fountain, Tsotsi, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (actually a 2005 film).

Some of you think I only complain about movies, or that I only complain about certain types of movies. (For example, Peter Jackson films.) That’s not true. I like a lot of films. It’s just not as fun to write about the good ones.

Kris and I are woefully behind on our “see all the Oscar best picture nominees before the awards ceremony” tradition. True, the nominations won’t be announced until the end of the month, but it’s possible for one to make some educated guesses. Most years, we see three or four of the five nominees before they’re announced. This year, the only potential nominee we’ve seen is Crash (and, though we liked it a great deal, it only has a small chance at being nominated). To catch up, we’ll probably need to see at least one film each weekend until March.

Today we decided to take in Capote, which has been receiving all sorts of rave reviews. Though I boycott Regal Cinemas out of principle, sometimes the Fox Tower 10 downtown is our only option, as it was this time.

After parallel parking on the left side of the street (a skill analogous to writing with your left hand if you’re right-handed: it’s do-able, but not prettily), and after being literally ambushed for change by a panhandler, we made our way to the theater. The auditorium was small and already a little crowded. Kris spied four open seats in the back row. I could have sat so that we each had a one-seat buffer, but I decided that I’d be polite and leave two consecutive seats for another couple. This was a smart move: those two seats were soon taken. This was also a dumb move: I sat next to a pathetic movie patron.

The man next to me reeked of cigarettes. (“He smelled like the inside of a smoker’s mouth,” I told Kris after the movie.) He smelled as if he always wore the same clothes when he smoked and never washed them. The smoking had apparently taken other tolls as well. His breathing was labored. Every few minutes he let out a deep, airy sigh. (A sigh that, of course, smelled like the the foul pits of hell.) His chest rattled with phlegm. During the film he had a few fits of wet coughing. When he became bored (along with the rest of the audience), he began picking at his cuticles, making rhythmic (and loud) click click sounds.

So how was the movie?

Capote is a beautiful, well-crafted film that tells the story of Truman Capote’s work on In Cold Blood, his famous “non-fiction novel” of the early sixties. The story follows Capote and Harper Lee (of To Kill a Mockingbird fame) as they research the brutal killings of a family in a small Kansas town.

Unfortunately, the film has no point.

Every aspect of the movie exhibits attention to detail and quality work except the script. The sets and costumes are brilliant, perfectly evoking the world of the early sixties. The acting is top-notch. (Philip Seymour Hoffman ably carries the film as Capote.) The directing is wonderful, slow and measured, patient. The cinematography is beautiful. The script, however, is mundane, even tedious.

Truman Capote is a fundamentally unsympathetic character. The man was a mannered fop, a well-known liar (he told all sorts of tall tales), and blatantly manipulative. In order for a film about him to be effective, we have to care about the other characters, we have to be given a compelling story. That doesn’t happen here.

The central relationship in the film is that between Capote and one of the killers, Perry Smith. We don’t sympathize with the killer, though, and we’re never given any reason to care about their relationship. I was ready to become attached to Harper Lee (played by Catherine Keener, whom I always like), but she’s really a cypher in this film. Think of it: here are the two real-life people used as the basis for Mockingbird‘s Dill and Scout, on screen together again: any fan of the book is wholly willing to become emotionally invested in their adult relationship. We’re never given a chance.

Instead, the film seems to wander aimlessly. When it has a focus, it is on Capote’s relationship with Smith, which is a relationship we just don’t care about. We’re never given any reason we should care.

Capote is not a bad film, but it’s certainly not best picture material. Hoffman could justly win an Oscar for best actor, Bennett Miller (helming his second film) could win for best director, and the cinematography could be honored, but the script, and the film as a whole, don’t deserve that sort of praise. You see? It’s not just King Kong and its ilk that I find fault with — I even find fault with critically-acclaimed films.

As soon as the film was over, before the credits could even begin to roll, the Smoking Man sprang from his seat and slid down the aisle. He was a small, thin man with a biker’s jacket. A million-to-one he was heading outside for a cigarette. Or three.

Somebody on AskMetafilter recently wondered “What are some of the most over-rated movies you’ve ever seen?” Though, as you might expect, the discussion was overflowing with subjectivity, there were also some interesting observations. One commenter noted that it’s possible for a film be both good and overrated, as in those well-reviewed small art films that don’t lend themselves to mass appeal. More often, however, it is the over-hyped blockbusters of mediocre quality that seem to garner more acclaim than their modest pretensions can bear.

The AskMe commenters considered Forrest Gump the most over-rated film they’d seen. The Lord of the Rings trilogy took second place, and there was a three-way tie for third between Napoleon Dynamite, Titanic, and the most recent Star Wars trilogy.

I noted that recent years have often seen the Oscar for best picture go to overhyped, overrated films in lieu of films of greater merit. I make a point of seeing all the Best Picture nominees each year. Each of the following struck me as overrated and undeserving: Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, The Return of the King (aka Peter Jackson’s The Long Goodbye).

This trend is not new, however. Last night, Kris and I watched an overrated film from 1973. How The Sting managed to win eight Oscars (including Best Picture over The Exorcist) and rake in a pile of dough is beyond me.

The Sting was released when I was four years old. All I can remember of it is how for a time the film’s theme song — Scott Joplin’s piano rag “The Entertainer” — seemed to be everywhere. Over the past thirty-two years, I’ve picked up something of the plot, but until last night I had never seen the film.

The film is set in 1936 Chicago, at the height of The Depression. The prohibition-era gangsters are gone, but their legacy lives on in small-time hoods and grifters, and in organized dens of iniquity throughout the city. One of these small-time players is Johnny Hooker. When one of his scams accidentally nets $10,000 he finds himself playing for even bigger stakes. His partner is killed, so he seeks the help of Henry Gondorff, a big-time con artist. Together, they orchestrate an elaborate revenge.

The film is stylish, but its style seems a sort of melange of different early twentieth century eras. The score is all ragtime piano, music that was popular in the late 1890s and early 1900s, not in 1936. (That’s like using big band music for a film set during the 1970s.) The costumes look more 1920s than the 1930s.

The sets also contribute to this patchwork quality. Many of the interior shots were shot on soundstage. (Even the golf scene was shot on a sound stage.) Most of the exterior scenes make obvious use of a studio backlot. I don’t mind soundstages and backlots, but it’s nice when they’re less obtrusive.

The film has other problems. There’s a subplot with a sort-of-love-interest that makes little sense and serves no purpose. It ought to have been excised from the script. The director isn’t content to cut between scenes, but uses an array of distracting wipes. This works for George Lucas in his Star Wars films, but it doesn’t work here. Because of the extensive use of sound stages and back lots, the entire movie has a stage-y feel, as if adapted from a play. (Kris and I both noted this independently of each other.) I got the impression that Robert Redford (as Johnny Hooker) was supposed to be playing a young punk in this film, somebody maybe 21-years-old, yet at the time the film was made he was 35- years-old and he looks it.

Though The Sting is likable enough, it’s ultimately forgettable popcorn fluff. There’s nothing there. It left me with a sort of empty feeling. “Is that all there is?” I asked kris when it was finished, but she only shrugged. It’s not that the film is bad; it just isn’t good. It feels like average entertainment. Why is it so revered? To me, it’s just another overrated movie.

This review is a month late. It’s also very, very long. So sue me.

INTRODUCTION
Joel and Aimee and many other geeks have written rave reviews for the recent sci-fi action flick Serenity. Most of these raves come from fans of the television show Firefly, upon which the film is based. I’ve never seen the show, but the film’s geek cred drew me to it. (To be fair, some geeks recognized the film as flawed, and knew that non-fans might feel overwhelmed.)

My short review: this is a good science fiction movie. My long review follows, but first a plot synopsis.

Sometime in the future, Earth has become overpopulated, forcing humanity to migrate (apparently in massive numbers) to another star system. This new star system is some sort of bizarre astronomical anomaly: it contains “dozens of planets and hundreds of moons”. The refugees terraform these planets and moons over the course of decades (centuries?). These worlds are centrally controlled by some sort of Alliance, which may or may not be an authoritarian government. (The political situation seems important, but is only vaguely described.) Life is complicated by the presence of rampaging zombie space pirates (seriously) that periodically raid remote settlements.

As the film begins, River, a young woman with psychic powers (and incredible physical prowess), is being held for experimentation by some top-secret government science organization. Her brother frees her and takes her to the spaceship on which he is the medical officer. This ship is called Serenity, and includes a crew of maybe a half dozen outlaws.

These outlaws travel to an outlying settlement in order to rob the payroll from somebody. (No, this doesn’t really make sense. It’s one of those film things that is more for effect than because it’s actually sensible. Why is the payroll not handled through electronic transactions, or at the very least through checks? I don’t know. It just isn’t. It’s paid in cash.) During the heist, the zombie space pirates attack, and our heroes flee.

Meanwhile, a dangerous government assassin has been dispatched to recover River, the stolen girl. (This assassin kills his marks in a bizarre fashion. He holds a sword on the ground and then causes his victims to fall upon it via some sort of acupressure. Again, this makes no sense, and is solely for effect.) Wherever our heroes go for refuge, the assassin follows, and he kills those who come into contact with the crew.

Eventually, Serenity makes its way to River’s home planet, where we learn that the government had been experimenting with some sort of air-borne pacification drug intended to keep the population malleable. (Sort of like the spores in that old Star Trek episode.) The drug didn’t just pacify, though, but sapped everyone’s will to live. People stopped caring. They died where they stood. (Again, this doesn’t really make sense. It doesn’t need to. It’s just a plot device.) Coincidentally, this same pacification drug caused a portion of the population to turn into the zombie space pirates that have been causing trouble.

Our heroes decide that the entire star system must know about this heinous crime (if crime it is), so they head for a technogeek guy they know. Unfortunately, the government assassin has anticipated this move, and a three-way final battle ensues (heroes vs. government vs. zombie space pirates). In the end, the heroes win, but not without cost.

It’s all rather fun while it lasts, despite the improbabilities, but the film hasn’t held up well over the ten days since I viewed it. Most of what I have to say is negative. As you read the following, realize that I enjoyed the film, and would probably grade it a B.

CHARACTERS
There are many characters in Serenity, but they’re mostly uninteresting. I felt no connection with any of them except River, on whom the film devotes the most time for backstory. River is a fantastic character — and the film is all about her — but truth be told, she’s not used enough. She’s less a character than a convenient re-usable deus ex machina, and a pretty figure to pose in comic book stances. (And she is a pretty figure. Is there anything sexier than a fit young woman, barefoot, clad in only a thin gauzy dress, laying waste with mad martial arts skills? No, there is nothing sexier.) I’d like to know more about Kayleigh, and the captain, and some of the minor players, but I’m never given the chance. (One character seems completely superfluous. Ariana (or whatever her name is) serves no purpose. It’s my guess that she’s in the film simply to tie up some loose plot thread from the television series. She was apparently once the captain’s girlfriend.)

Furthermore, the characters are not complex. Each is defined by a single motive. Kayleigh loves the doctor. The doctor is protective of River. River is a psychic killing machine. (People keep saying she’s mentally disturbed or crazy, but we have no evidence of this other than the fact that people keep saying it is so.) Some characters have no motives: the pilot and his wife, what’s their deal? Who knows. The lumox is a lumox. The captain’s motive is one-liners.

As a sidenote: River looks a little like Fiona Apple, don’t you think?

Musical Waif	Ass-Kicking Waif

Captain Malcolm looks like Nate Fisher from Six Feet Under or like Craig Briscoe from Alaska.

Architect	Undertaker	Outlaw

DIALOGUE
Speaking of one-liners…

Though writer-director Joss Whedon‘s plotting is strong, and his dialogue is brisk, he has peppered the script with the twee smart-alecky humor that I so dislike in his writing. (Whedon is the man behind the Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise, and is currently writing one of the many flavors of X-Men, the only flavor that interests me.) I’ll wager his fans love the one-liners. I do not. They’re not funny. His character’s snappy, “witty” retorts don’t make me laugh; they make me grimace. The most egregious of these witticisms are reserved for the beginning of the film, during the character development moments. I can’t help but think that if Whedon had spent more time on character development than on jokes, maybe the audience would care more about the characters.

I was worried that the entire film would be filled with one-liners, but fortunately they subside, and some are eventually quite funny.

Here’s an example of an exchange I like. During the climactic battle scene, as he is about to kill the captain, the government assassin asks, “Do you know what your sin is?” The captain replies, “Hell, I’m a fan of all seven, but right now I’m going to have to go with wrath.” A bit stagey and far too wordy, but amusing. (And, yes, I realize that line sounds as if it might be spoken by Sawyer from Lost.)

Here’s an example of a more typical “funny” line. After a drawn-out chase on a landspeeder of sorts, River says, “I swallowed a bug.” Ha ha! Later, the captain says, “Doctor, I’ve taken your sister under my protection here. If anything happens to her, anything at all, I swear to you: I will get very choked up. Honestly. There might even be tears.” If you find this sort of banter witty, then you may love the film. If you find this dialogue forced and, well, dumb, then there are parts of this film that must be endured rather than enjoyed. (You can read more quotes here.)

I do like the conceit that these characters speak in American Civil War-era English. It gives the setting a sense of foreign-ness while still being accessible. (Plus, I love American Civil War-era English.)

STORY
I like the “Born in a Trunk“-style (or Matrix-style, if you prefer) onion-peeling levels of unreality that start the film. (You can watch the first nine minutes of the film here.) A voiceover history of the story’s setting turns into a school lecture turns into a memory turns into a holographic projection. (I may even have missed a layer.) This history lesson does a fair job of introducing the setting without being too clumsily obvious an exposition dump, but it doesn’t succeed entirely. I want to know more about this bizarre solar system. Why does it have “dozens of planets and hundreds of moons”? How does that work? Why were so many able to be terraformed? Just how large is the habitable zone around this star? Aren’t most of the planets far too cold or far too hot for terraforming ever to work? Tell me more!

There are certain sections of the film where I felt a little lost. At one point, our heroes flee to a sort of religious commune in a desert. Why? There seems to be some sort of shared history there, but the audience is never made to understand what sort of shared history that might be. And later, when the commune is massacred, we’re supposed to care, but we don’t.

Other things bother me, too. The post-heist action sequence is lame, especially the whole “we can’t pick up another guy because he’d be too heavy” bit. We’re told River weighs ninety pounds. Surely the landspeeder thingie can hold River and a medium-sized guy just as well as it could hold a jumbo-sized guy, right? Why does the number of people matter? Wouldn’t mass be the limiting factor?

Also: Not only is the character Ariana superfluous, she’s responsible for one of the most ludicrous scenes in the film. She’s a priestess. She apparently once had a relationship with the captain, so the bad guys use her as bait to draw our heroes to them. While under the watch of the government assassin, she’s able to obtain some sort of gunpowder-based bomb, plant it before her Buddha, and then use an incense stick to cause it to go off at exactly the right moment to prevent the captain from being killed. Huh? This is one of the most improbable things I’ve ever seen in a film.

EFFECTS, ETC.
I liked the design of this film. The feel of the society is unique and interesting: a sort of combination between the Wild West and modern SE Asia. The setting sometimes feels like Blade Runner, but less industrial.

The space battles are similar (but slightly superior) to the opening sequence in Revenge of the Sith. They also share some of the same flaws. There are too many ships, there’s too much going on, and the camera shots are too tight for the audience to have any idea of what is actually happening. It’s just frenetic chaos, and that’s not fun to watch. It’s as if the plot shuts down for two minutes and you have to tell yourself: “This is a generic space battle; nothing about it matters.”

Another (bad) similarity to Star Wars: remember how absurd it was in The Phantom Menace that the Trade Federation could blockade a planet by forming a ring around its equator? Well, the same goofiness is present in Serenity. Twice. Those who write science fiction films need to be taught to think in three dimensional space. (It was even a major plot point during the final battle in Strar Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, but in that film, the writers used this knowledge to their advantage.)

Too many things in this film occur just for the effect. (Remember this was one of my complaints with Peter Jackson’s Tolkien grotesques.) In the first few minutes, River climbs a wall and braces herself on the ceiling in order to escape detection, an act that seems wholly gratuitous.

Why not just hide behind a cart of medical supplies? Because that wouldn’t look cool! Near the end of the film, River (who, remember, is a one-woman killing machine) goes apeshit on a horde of zombie space pirates that is attacking Serenity. Most of her rampage occurs off-screen. When it’s finished, the camera pulls back to reveal River, surrounded by zombie space pirate corpses, holding two massive axe-like weapons (both of which are dripping copious amounts of blood). She looks like a waif-orc. It’s meant to be cool, but it’s actually funny in a sort of ludicrous way.

As a director, Whedon shoots with fine dramatic effect, often employing what I consider comic book shots: he shoots from unusual angles or perspectives (overhead shots, ground-level shots), uses atmospheric lighting, and loves to stand his actors in super-hero poses.

The soundtrack was good: varied and interesting. It wasn’t omnipresent (as John Williams’ recent overblown Star Wars scores), but when it was there, it was fun.

CONCLUSION
Serenity is the sort of film that, upon reflection, doesn’t hold up well. There are just too many gaps of logic, and too much is done for effect rather than for the service of the story. And yet I liked it. I liked the film despite its sophomoric humor, its superfluous characters, its strange science. It has a charm and likeabiltiy about it that are missing in the recent Star Wars films, for example.

Is this the best science fiction film of the 21st century? I don’t think it even comes close, not even with qualifications. Did it deserve to bomb at the box office? Probably not. Why did it bomb at the box office? I can think of two reasons. First, the trailer was terrible. The day before I saw Serenity, I watched a preview for it in the theater that almost made me decide against it. Second, it’s just not one of those films that makes you want to run out and recommend it to other people. I have many geek friends who are also unfamiliar with this universe and story, but I don’t intend to proselytize to them.