Serenity: Access Journalism?
Check this out: Josh Marshall, who runs the excellent political weblog www.talkingpointsmemo.com, gives a rave review to SERENITY.
I’ve been reading Talking Points Memo for years, and as far as I can recall, this is the first time Mr. Marshall has used his forum to plug a movie. I guess all those free tickets Universal Studios gave him really paid off?
To be fair, the rest of the nation’s film critics seem to be positive about the film, which received an 80% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.Com in this survey of 59 reviews (42 positive, 17 negative).
Roger Ebert wrote that the film is made of “dubious but energetic special effects, breathless velocity, and much imagination, some sly verbal wit, and a little political satire.”
The NY Times’ Manohla Dargis was also positive: “Joss Whedon’s unassuming science-fiction adventure is superior in almost every respect to George Lucas’s aggressively more ambitious screen entertainments.”
On the negative side, USA Today’s Claudio Puig wrote: “Though die-hard fans probably will take issue, SERENITY is mostly sci-fi silliness, attempting to be something more substantive.”
And Derek Elly of Daily Variety opined that the film “bounces around to sometimes memorable effect but rarely soars.”
And finally Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek reviews the film: her one complaint in what is otherwise a hymn of praise: the movie does not quite live up to the short-lived FIREFLY television show on which it’s based.
