Went to see this last week. While I would agree that it isn’t the best film ever, as a Whedon-head I did enjoy it enormously. It was certainly more on a par with Star Trek 2: the Wrath of Khan than Star Trek: Generations in terms of successful transition from goggle box to silver screen (personally I’ve never really enjoyed a Next Generation film, although I love the spin offs from the Original Series, even the bad ones).
One problem I found was however that most of the best Whedonisms in the dialogue had been put in the trailer, meaning that all the best lines tended to be underwhelming when they finally appeared in the film. This is a common mistake of film promoters. I seem to recall that they did this with Crocadile Dundee, the difference in that case being that the only half-decent bits were in the trailer (indeed, admitting that Crocadile Dundee had ANY redeeming features is likely to get my in trouble in some quarters. What can I say? I was young and I’m not saying it wasn’t shit overall!).
Read after here for minor spoilers…
Speaking as someone who watched the Firefly series on DVD relatively recently, I have to say I was impressed with how they managed to condense all the neccessary complex backstory in the first five minutes. Logically, the way they did it made absolutely no sense – a dream sequence inside a flashback that then turned out to be security camera footage being watched by the baddies. But it was damned effective and quite radical.
Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s Operative was a great character, a slight reprise of Richard Brooks‘ Jubal Early in the best/last episode evar of Firefly (without the Christopher Walken impression). I don’t think I’m in any hurry to see Kinky Boots, but he’s clearly someone who will go a long way.
It’s been amusing to see how the marketing sexed up the character of River into some kind of barely clothed version of Buffy. Fortunately though, this was all just a confidence trick and she was back to being the same freak she is in the TV series.
So, what’s next? Well, they didn’t exactly answer all the questions posed in the TV series, or even what River was surgically operated on to do. It certainly seems to have done enough box office to warrant a sequel. My guess is, they will finally explore Shepherd Book’s past in the next film.