Blu-ray Movie Reviews

A passenger with a deadly secret. Six rebels on the run. An assassin in pursuit. When the renegade crew of "Serenity" agrees to hide a fugitive on their ship, they find themselves in an action-packed battle between the relentless military might of a totalitarian regime who will destroy anything - or anyone - to get the girl back and the bloodthirsty creatures who roam the uncharted areas of space. But, the greatest danger of all may be on their ship.

Joss Whedon is well known for his very successful TV shows, including Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. Serenity is a feature length movie that continues the story of the show Firefly and was actually originally intended as a TV movie. I imagine that was before Firefly was cancelled from the Fox network, which was a big blow to the show's many fans. Serenity ties up a lot of the loose ends from the show and takes the production value up a notch. The film finds the crew of the Serenity on the run from a government assassin looking to recapture one of the crewmembers before she unveils some dark secrets she's been privy to. The crew finds out about the secrets and stages a plot to inform the galaxy. If I had a complaint it would be the mix of production value. The special effects waver a bit in their overall quality, which is likely a byproduct of starting out as a TV feature release then moving to a bigger production.

Serenity was Universal's first offering for the HD DVD format. And what an intro it was. This new Blu-ray version looks to be a bit better than the original HD release and has a bit more fine detail this time around. The movie has a lot of film grain and a stylized look, and this release captures that perfectly, but still retains perfect detail even with the smallest objects. Right from the beginning of the film, depth of image is impeccable, and colors look incredible. While not a huge step up from the previous HD DVD release, this is still the best I’ve seen the film look and an outstanding HD transfer overall.

The Blu-ray release ups the ante in the soundtrack department and gets the full DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 treatment. The most enjoyable aspect is the low end, which is tight and aggressive. The space battle near the end of this film is a great demo sequence, and the lossless mix delivers it in spades. Surrounds are used aggressively throughout the film and add to the excitement of the story and visuals. My only complaint is some inconsistent ADR from time to time, which was slightly distracting.

All of the extras from the previous HD DVD are included along with a bunch of new interactive features. Using their U-Control interactivity you get a picture-in-picture feature commentary with the director and principle cast along with a bunch of behind the scenes stuff and interviews. Pop-ups deliver technical information on the film’s production and set design and there is even an encyclopedia of sorts for the Firefly universe. A feature length audio commentary and a ton of production features are also included along with deleted scenes, alternate scenes and outtakes. This disc is also BD-Live enabled allowing you to share clips and check out other promo stuff on Universal’s BD-Live site.

Serenity is a fun and different take on the sci-fi genre, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The characters are great, and so is the action. This new Blu-ray release takes the previously release up a notch and delivers reference quality audio and video and adds some great extras. Highly recommended.