This is the best movie review ever written.

This is the best review I have ever read. It actually brought tears to my eyes. This is the Aint It Cool News review of Serenity, written by someone who hates Buffy and Angel.

If you still haven't made up your mind about Serenity, or have no idea what it is, this is the review for you:

For years I’ve bitched, I’ve ranted and I’ve downright screamed about the direction Hollywood went in the 80’s and never returned from. Many a film has pissed me off and let me down for absolutely failing the audiences of the world by making sure it always worked out in the end – making sure the heroes rode off into the sunset together. It seems that every mortal wound can be fixed these days, and as films are tested, retested and tested again we’ve ended up with a steady stream of homogenized entertainment that has forgotten the primary rule of ending a story – that there are two endings to every story: The ending the audience wants and the ending the audience really wants. The Audience wants E.T. to stay with Eliot. The audience wants Ilsa to stay with Rick, not Victor. The audience wants Jack to survive the cold waters to take care of Rose. And there’s a reason we love these movies despite these endings not being delivered. That’s because these endings suck. And for years, except for a few bright spots, these are the endings we’ve been given time and time again.

This has been my belief for years – something I’ve looked for in films, something I’ve hoped for in films and something that’s stuck with me in everything I’ve ever written. And tonight that belief has been tested. Joss Whedon has taken the crew of the Serenity, a crew I’ve come to love over time, put them through a hell from which they can never return and left me bleeding and crying on the mattress. And I don’t know if I want to kick him squaw in the nuts or kiss him square on the mouth for it.

I’ve talked my share of smack about Joss Whedon in my day. Hell I’ve also talked Herc’s share, Dmann’s share and the shares of three other friends who fought so hard for me to watch Firefly for three years. I’ve talked a lot of smack. I hate Buffy. I hate Angel. I love the first hour of Alien: Resurrection – but hate the last 15 minutes with a passion. I Love the Buffy the Vampire Slayer film BECAUSE I hate it so much – it’s so bad it’s good. But despite all this, I sat down to watch Firefly with an open mind because so many friends I trusted told me it was worth it. And they were right. I really enjoyed Firefly. Flawed though it was, Firefly proved to be damned fun. And over the course of 14 episodes I grew to fall in love with almost every member of the Serenity’s crew.

So I hereby officially take it all back. Every fucking word. I still hate Buffy. I still hate Angel. I still hate the last 15 minutes of Alien: Resurrection. But Joss Whedon has the biggest god damned set of balls I’ve seen in God knows how long. Joss Whedon has made a film that will piss off a lot of his fanbase, hell, that pissed me off, and if successful could have single handedly ushered back the days of old – at least as far as Genre Filmmaking is concerned. Joss Whedon has made his Seven Samurai, his Dirty Dozen, his Wild Bunch. Joss Whedon has made the first truly great space opera in quite some time.

The old guard doesn’t have this kind of balls anymore. Spielberg certainly doesn’t. While Spielberg so readily early in his career sent E.T. back of into space and let T.S. Quint end up in the belly of the very beast he hunted, he hasn’t delivered like that since. He cut the real ending right off of Minority Report and let that fucking kid live in War of the Worlds – and while I enjoyed both of those films, because of those endings I’ve never felt the need to go back and rewatch them. And I still haven’t. Lucas never had that kind of balls. Sure he took Yoda and Ben from us – but not really. And when he had the chance to really get us, to take Lando from us and destroy the greatest flying pile of shit in the universe, he changed it, swearing that no one would ever see the footage of the Millennium Falcon blowing up. Gone with those balls and those days was a true feeling of dread for our characters – days when we never knew who was going to get out alive.

The most important rule of storytelling is this. First and foremost you have to make your audience FEEL. If you can’t make them feel, then you have to make them THINK. If you can’t make them think, then you have to make them LAUGH. If you can’t do any of these things then you’re not really telling a story – you’re just passing the time. The problem that most people have with Hollywood these days is that many of the guys who run it, and many of the old guard themselves, have forgotten this. Most of the movies they give us just pass the time. They’re often afraid to make us feel, because they want audiences to be happy. Happy audiences tell their friends. Let’s make the audiences happy, right? Wrong. An audience that has fallen in love with a character only to have them taken away is an audience that will go back themselves just to spend time with that character again, and hope, pray and beg – even though it defies logic – for that character to make it through this time. And the audience’s heart gets broken again. And again. And again. Did Titanic make 1.8 Billion dollars because everyone on the planet saw it? Hardly. It made that much money because women went back time and again to fall in love with Jack and to hope he made it through that time. Would we even remember Casablanca if Rick really did double cross Victor and ran off with Ilsa? Would we even care about E.T. if he’d revealed himself to the world and stayed as the newest, beloved member of Planet earth?

How many times have we as geeks watched Alien, Aliens, The Terminator, The Terminator 2, The Magnificent Seven, the Seven Samurai, The Dirty Dozen, Unforgiven, The Lord of the Rings, Jaws, The Matrix? These aren’t just films we love, these are the films we swear by when we wake up in the morning. And these films all have one common thread. They are absolutely unafraid to kill off characters we love – and they never, ever bring them back.

And that’s exactly what Joss Whedon does in Serenity. And unlike the characters in all of these other films I’ve mentioned, we’ve spent a hell of a lot more than just two hours with them. We’ve spent roughly 800 minutes with them. 800 hundred minutes. That’s over 13 hours. That’s more than the entirety of The Lord of the Rings Extended Editions put together. And while Firefly ran, despite someone ending up plugged full of holes in almost every episode, there was no mortal wound the Doc couldn’t fix right up. Not this time. Not in this story. By the time Serenity reaches its climax, there isn’t a single ounce of belief that any of these characters will make it out alive. By the time the final reel has spun out and you sit there stunned in an empty theatre you can’t believe what you’ve just seen. You’re pissed, you’re hurt, you want Joss Whedon to go right back and fix it all, to put it all back together how it was. But he can’t – because that’s not how it was supposed to be. Joss Whedon’s Firefly universe is dangerous, it always has been, and the luck of the crew of the Serenity has finally run out. And you come to absolutely hate that fact.

Serenity is Joss Whedon getting right everything I ever complained about in Firefly. My biggest complaint was the western aspects – not that it was a sci-fi western, I loved that, but just how hard he pushed to give it the western feel. The frilly dresses and the bonnets really were a bit much. Okay, the civil war parallel – awesome. The gun slinging lawlessness of the outer rim – perfect. The bonnets? Retarded. I mean, Kurosawa proved that you could make a real honest to god western without the western elements and still end up making a real western – and he called it The Seven Samurai. Well, here, Whedon completely does away with the Bonnets. Here we spend most of our time right where we need to be – on the ship. Here Whedon never feels he has to make this the old west to FEEL like the old west. And he ends up making a real, honest to god western.

I honestly never liked the River Tam storyline. To me it just felt like a Weapon X send up, another nod to Joss’s love of comic books. But here Joss does something completely different, something unexpected – he turns the storyline on its ear in a way we really should have seen coming, but never did. It becomes something different – something Wolverine, Universal Soldier and every other government weapon storyline ever never did. And now, I actually love that storyline.

And finally, I never liked how readily the crew survived every happenstance, no matter how dangerous. And Lo how I long for those days again.

Serenity is everything Firefly always seemed to want to be but never was. Serenity is everything it should be and then some. Serenity is real honest to god Western that puts you right on the edge of your seat praying for someone, anyone to come out alive, and never promising that that’s actually going to happen. Serenity hits everything it aims at – it’s continuously funny, even in the most dramatic of sequences; it’s heartbreaking at the most unexpected of times; and it’s chock full of action and real danger every step of the way.

There is never a dull moment in Serenity, never a moment I wouldn’t willingly go back to and rewatch over and over again. And despite what Joss put me through, despite feeling cheated, feeling robbed, feeling like all of Firefly was just a sham, I can’t wait to go back. I can’t wait to spend those precious few moments with the crew of the Serenity one more time. And I never thought, even while watching the movie, that this was possible. I had no faith in Joss. I honestly thought he was going to cheat – that everything was just a dream, that this was all a premonition of River’s that would lead them on a different path, that River might possess some great, unknown juju that could fix it and make it all better. And that lack of faith scared me more than the idea of never seeing the crew alive again.

But I take it all back, Joss. I have faith. I believe in you now. You’ve made a real classic genre film, one I’ll see several more times in a theatre long before I can put it in my DVD player on repeat. One I’ll swear to in the morning when I wake up and give my daily praise to when I thank Cameron and Jackson and early Spielberg and early Lucas and Kurosawa and the Scott Brothers and the Wachowski Brothers. Never in a million years would I ever have guessed the name Whedon belonged in there. But apparently, it does.

So Hercules, I’m sorry. Dmann, sorry dude. Chris, Matt, Ari, Beau – complete apologies. You guys were right. You all had faith and I didn’t.

My friend Chris said it best – if Buffy, Angel and Firefly were semesters at college, Serenity is Joss Whedon’s thesis paper. It’s the culmination of everything he’s worked for. And god damnit is it fucking good. If you have yet, much like myself until recently, to watch Firefly, you owe it to yourself to do so now. Marathon the fucking thing. You owe it to yourself to see this movie now, as soon as possible, before some fucking asshat decides to blow it for you and ruin one of the great emotional fuckovers in recent film history. And while I’m certain people can watch this film without seeing Firefly, it will mean nothing to them, it’ll be just another cool sci-fi film. You need the backstory, you need the love. This is one hell of a big fucking risk, a gamble of epic proportions to make a film that just doesn’t work without all the backstory of the 14 episode series. But there they are, Joss Whedon’s huge god damned testicles hanging out there for all to see. And maybe, just maybe, if this movie does well enough, the Hollywood types, the old guard and the young turks just now making their way up just might sit up and take notice. We could see a real honest to god renaissance in the way films are made, in the way they play with our emotions, in the way they make us feel. All brought to you by Joss Whedon. Wow, there’s words I never thought I’d say.

I saw a sneak preview a few weeks ago and it was spectacular.

Here's my thread about it, which I am now about to bump...

This is just like every other AICN review. 1) Talk about yourself until we hate you. 2) Judge the movie against other films in geek canon because they represent the total significant contribution to film. 3) Make claims that are guarenteed not to stand the test of time. 4) Address the filmmakers directly because they are listening for your insight. This piece is better than most of them, but that kind of review is patently worthless and awful.

[Edited on Sep 30, 2005 by Jeff_Fries]

Not saying it sucks or anything but I still don't understand all this hype. It just looks like an above average sci-fi flick to me. So what I'm getting is:

A) This is a prequel or sequel to a shortlasting TV show with a small cult following
B) Starwars is over and theres a million greasy dorks on the rebound.

Is that about it?

PS. Pauline, you are my type of women; attractive and surrounded by alchohol and redbull

You know, maybe he starts talking about the actual movie by the second half of that review, but I was already too bored to keep reading about him talking about other shit by that point.

Well, I guess he did tell me that I won't give a shit if I didn't watch the show, so that stops the review from being totally worthless. But maybe it would be better if he actually reviewed the movie at some point.

No

With some modifications:

A) This is a sequel to a shortlived television show that nearly every person who catches the DVD wishes they'd watched on TV so it wouldn't have got canned. I've never heard of anyone who wanted it to die or thought it was worthless. Most customer reviews I've ever read for it on my DVD rental service start "I never even heard of this on television..." and end "...I wish they'd made more it's amazing." In fact the three bad ones had the following complaints. "Not as good as B5", "Not as good as Stargate." and "Whedon sings the theme tune, it's just rubbish" In depth huh?

B) No. Not even close. And Star Wars died after Empire was the rumour I heard...

All that, and i'm still not going to see some dorky space-karate movie.

I think the best review i ever read was of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer:

"When a movie begins, I imagine an empty room in my mind that is about to be filled. This movie left the room furnished only with dust and a few dead flies."

Does "I watched one episode and thought it was one of the worst things I had ever seen" count as thinking it was worthless?

I'd say that applies to all reviews concerning entertainment.

I'll be bookmarking this and returning to read it after I see the film.

Was it the pilot?

Plus I said people didn't like it but they never say why. So so far no one's convincingly given a reason why it might be so bad even in their opinion. I have heard 'I don't like Sci Fi' or 'I don't like Westerns' or 'I don't like Sci Fi Westerns' in which case... duh. But never any actual criticism that might make me think, oh yeah, good point it does suck in that way.

[Edited on Sep 29, 2005 by fpkk]

It seems like there are two types of fanboy movie reviewer in the world:

1) The guy who will gripe about a movie not being loyal enough to its comic book/scifi-novel source. AKA the "Um, Superman's suit is actually more of a Navy blue, thank you!!" crew. These people will pan any movie that dares to sully or change something they've invested so much of their lives in.

2) The guy who has so much invested in some cult book, TV show, comic, or videogame that anything related to it is pure genius; the best thing ever. This sycophant and all the people who weren't able to see that Hitchhiker's Guide wasn't anything but a poor movie fall in this category.

Neither group is able to look at anything with a critical eye. That's why these reviews are totally worthless. If you think this is the best movie review "ever written." you need to read more.

I mean, why is it so good? The guy could have written "Serenity is awesome!!!" and i would have been better informed, and I would have saved the 3 minutes it took to read this love letter to some guys testicles. Jeezus....

[Edited on Sep 29, 2005 by PointBlank]

I was roped into buying the Firefly box set.....

Didn't get it. It wasn't TERRIBLE, but it certainly wasn't consistantly well written. More of Whedon's usual middle school half baked antics.

Then I saw Serenity.

I still don't like it. I can't say I LOATHE either, there's FAR worse sci fi out there (I still remember being subjected to "the coolest thing Sam Raimi ever did!" and suffering an episode of Cleopatra 2525)......but I don't think it's anywhere near as good as the fanatics would suggest.

Maybe in the hands of other writers, with a different concept, the universe could produce some good stories.

Side note, THIS review of Return of the King is not only the best movie review ever written, it's also curteosy of AICN.

Ya know, the internet has really killed my attention spa

Hahahaha

I hate aintitcool.com reviews. "I remember when I first saw a movie by so-and-so. I was there, first time to the movies without my mom at age 16, a magical point in my childhood never to be recaptured again............" blahblah blah blah blah on andon and on about themselves, describing their actual entry into a movie theatre and the texture of their popcorn's butter........fucking drives me up the wall.

[Edited on Sep 29, 2005 by stockula]

Nope, one about this pregnant hooker.

I'll go into detail if you want, but I can't comment on the show as a whole given that I was never moved to watch a second episode. It kind of sucks too, as the movie doesn't look bad, and I waant to see if that chick really is made out of cheese.

Oh you saw it just before it died.

The pilot was very bad for about 20 minutes and then kicked ass. Then it went through a few good episodes. The worst it ever got was alright. You saw one of the alright ones... actually as I recall it's the one with the seige. I quite enjoyed the seige. But it does rather depend on you liking the characters by that stage.

Much better are the ones about the Psychic police and Summer.

And although it sucked you still want that cheese question answered. So it did its job.

There are 13 episides. So, it starts off bad, then fluctuates before it gets worse and it dies - in 13 episodes. Sounds like it has a James Dean/Marilyn Monroe thing going on.

I'm only refering to the penny-arcade cartoon about Serenity. That's the only way that I know that there is a mystery, and if pressed, I couldn't really say what that mystery is.

World religions are founded on less

Well, that's the problem: that was the worst episode of the series. All the build-up in various character arcs dealt with in a ham-handed and entirely contrived manner.

Haha, Cleopatra 2525 was hilarious. although I too could not bear to see an entire episode.