Monday night I saw a special free screening of Serenity, the movie followup to the TV series Firefly. The series is a bit complex to give a full rundown, but I'll try to give a three sentence summary.

It's 500 years in the future and mankind has moved to a new frontier in a new solar system, with an 1880s style Western flavor. Mal, a former soldier on the losing side of a civil war, captains his starship Serenity trying to make a living as an honest outlaw. His motley crew and passengers include a pilot, mechanic, two ship's mates, courtesan, preacher, doctor, and the doctor's young sister.

While I am a big fan of the series' clever dialogue and character interaction, I tended to get bored with the long term subplot of the mystery of River, the doctor's sister. I was afraid that the movie would center on that and try to view River as some deep and obsessive mystery. Look, she hears voices and dances! Oooo how mysterious!

Fortunately, while she does take up a large piece of the plot, it isn't too overdone. The characters are seemingly disparate, but manage to fit together. There's plenty of dark moments, but you can't blame the characters for their choices. Their motivations are complex and their actions understandable. There's plenty of laugh lines. At the end, the mysteries are solved in satisfyingly dark fashion. There's room for a sequel, but no call for one. (As a side note, the soundtrack didn't have as much a Western flavor as the series' music, you may view that as a plus or (like me) a slight minus.)

There are a couple of weak parts, including a weak start (certainly forced by the movie company to introduce people who hadn't seen the show before). Afterwards the movie catches stride. It raises the bar set by the series, not a huge leap but a noticeable one. Serenity ends up much more character driven, funny, and engrossing than any science fiction story this side of Battlestar Galactica.

4 stars out of 5.