Serenity

This might be one of my shorter reviews because I, like a lot of people, think this movie is probably better the less you know about it. I won't jump on the bandwagon jump on the bandwagon that it's this sleeper masterpiece, but I do think it's an interesting movie worth at least a little fun movie discussion.

Serenity follows the story of Baker Dill (played by Matthew McConaughey), a fishing boat captain who's job is to bring tourists out for big game fishing out on the ocean. However, Baker's source of income is limited, especially as he obsesses over a giant tuna he'd been going after for quite a long time. He has very little money and is often unable to pay his first mate (played by Djimon Hounsou) as well as other expenses.

The plot mainly begins when Baker's ex-wife, Karen (played by Anne Hathaway) comes to him and gives him the proposition that if he brings her abusive husband (played by Jason Clarke) out on his boat and kills him, she'll give him ten million dollars.

And that's really all I can tell you about this movie.

I wish I could say more and I don't really see myself doing a spoiler post on this, so you'll just have to

see it yourself and let me know what you think, but that doesn't mean there aren't things I can still say.

I'd say the biggest draw of the movie is the ideas and use of characters in this really unique plot. At the start it seems like its a very simple plot, but it does take a simple plot and create some ideas out of it. Are all the ideas great? No. Is the movie super mindblowing? The more distance I get from it, I'm realizing while its clever, its not absolutely brilliant.

The main draw outside of the ideas and concept, might be the performances. Matthew McConaughey continues to just show he's a very good actor. He gets his introspective moments that have almost become his new parody, but regardless of the flaws of the movie, I enjoy him in almost everything he does.

 I personally think Anne Hathaway is criminally underused in this film. I think despite some of her really great performances, she still has a stigma around her that doesn't really allow people to like her and I think she's really good in this film.

Jason Clarke is good, but he's not much of a character. He's pretty much your stereotypical bad guy. I mean I give the guy credit because he has that range to play really good characters while also playing dirt bags like this, but he doesn't add a whole lot besides a foil.

Other performances are good. Djimon Housou is always entertaining in what he's in and Diane Lane, while you could probably write her out and the story wouldn't change much, she does her Diane Lane-best and it's good.

Again, it's really difficult to really talk about this movie without giving away spoilers. I think the important part to note is that this movie did some mind bending and the concepts use to tell the story are really interesting.

I think the main problem with this movie, especially with some distance between my viewing, was that it didn't have much to say. The story is good, the performances are good, and the execution is good, but the overall themes are barely there and if they are, they're not saying anything really meaningful.

Now that's not necessarily a bad thing. Movies don't always have to have a super impactful message. But this movie just kind of tries to make you believe its trying to say something when in reality, its just kind of blind entertainment. It's got the feel of an indie movie, while the execution of a blockbuster movie and I think its a decent approach.

I think the hard thing with this movie is, how do you sell it? And based on the budget and box office turn out, they clearly didn't know how to. But I do think there is more here than the eventual bargin bin fate its probably going to end up becoming.

If you have Amazon Prime, check out Serenity. I wouldn't say you need to go out and buy this movie now, but if you get the chance and are able to avoid spoilers, go into it as blind as you can and enjoy the show.

Those are my quick thoughts on Serenity, not to be confused with the Firefly feature film from 2005. It should be noted that that was a horrible name for this film. It relates in no way to the film and I think I could come up with at least 10 better names if I spent 5 minutes thinking about it. What did you think? Comment and discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for Reading!