Way... Way out

REVIEWED - SERENITY: George Lucas, whose last three films showed the world that space opera could be as boring as, well, opera, should be forced to sit down and watch Joss Whedon's brilliantly entertaining inter-galactic western many, many times. Come to think of it, that's not good enough. He should be nailed to a chair and force-fed a julienne prepared from a print of Serenity as both punishment and a way of reintroducing levity and wit to his dreary metabolism.

In a great victory for nerd power, Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, managed to get the film off the ground after bereaved fans of his late TV series Firefly demanded that somebody, somewhere continue the story of this, in Joss's phrase, "Stagecoach in space".

Those unfamiliar with the show need not be concerned that they will be lost. Whedon is a wonderfully efficient storyteller and in a breathlessly busy opening flurry, full of dream sequences and false turns, he brings us rapidly up to speed.

Dishy, quippy Mal (Nathan Fillion), once a fighter on the wrong side in a war of independence, now travels the universe, smuggling contraband in his spaceship Serenity. Trouble (his middle name, I bet) ensues when he happens upon the button-lipped psychic River (Summer Glau) and her stoic brother Simon (Sean Maher).

The two young people have gotten on the wrong side of an evangelically deranged villain played, with inevitable Englishness, by the excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor. (By casting his villain as a religious fanatic, Whedon may be making allusions to the war on terror, but, thankfully, the film is so dizzyingly pacy you barely have time to consider such depths.)

Though Mal does have flavours of Han Solo about him, Whedon appears to be looking back behind Star Wars towards the western and science fiction serials that inspired Lucas. Never bogged down by convoluted exposition or explanations of its mythologies, Serenity cracks along like an episode of Flash Gordon with all the cliches disengaged by beautifully judged snatches of under-cutting dialogue: "Can I suggest something that doesn't involve violence, or is this the wrong crowd for that?" the most peaceable member of the crew pleads.

First class pulp from beginning to end. Serenity now!