Serenity (2005)

IMDb plot summary: The crew of the ship Serenity try to evade an assassin sent to recapture one of their members who is telepathic.
Directed by Joss Whedon. Starring Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, and Morena Baccarin.

I am a pretty devout Whedonite -- the one major exception being Firefly. Maybe it was too western-y, maybe it built the characters too slowly and didn't give them time to really blossom, I don't know. I enjoyed a couple of the individual episodes, but it never really gripped my heart the way so much of Whedon's work has. I am far, far in the minority on this one, as most folks I know cite Firefly as their favorite thing Whedon's done.

So I was not particularly excited for Serenity. I figured I'd mildly enjoy it but that it wouldn't have any deeper impact on me. And that's exactly what it felt like, like it just... slid off of my brain. Like all sequels, it's almost impossible for me to assess them apart from the whole franchise, and that's definitely the case here. I feel incomplete here, not because it wasn't a satisfactory ending for the series, but because I feel like I was asked to watch a TV season finale and judge it as somehow separate from the episodes building up to it. I think I've been partly avoiding this movie not because I thought it would be unpleasant, but because trying to find a framework for it is kind of exhausting.

The movie itself? Um, it was fine, I think. I knew about the most significant twists already, so they didn't hit me. There were some cool shots, particularly River-centric ones. Kaylee is delightful as always.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Serenity > No Highway in the Sky
Serenity < It (2017)
Serenity > Josh and the Big Wall
Serenity < Australia
Serenity < Ant-Man
Serenity < Foolproof
Serenity < Gentleman's Agremeent
Serenity > Kind Hearts and Coronets
Serenity < Brothers
Serenity < Winnie the Pooh
Serenity > The Descendants
Final spot: #1099 out of 2969.