Josh Whedon directs Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk and Summer Glau in this big screen conclusion to the short lived but much loved TV space western Firefly. 

Part Han Solo, part Outlaw Josey Wales, all Nathan Fillion (a loveable actor like Bruce Campbell or Timothy Olyphant that just seems to exude a screwball masculinity that comes from some never seen bygone era), Cap’ Mal Reynolds is about as much fun as you can have in space. And his crew have that lovely facing certain death but there’s still time for sarcy interplay vibe that only Whedon can deliver. As space romps go this is not any better than say Star Trek: Beyond below… at times the rushed effects and TV designed sets look downright clunky and you never shake the feeling you are watching the best scenes from a never made final season compressed awkwardly together… but it came at a time when Star Wars had disappeared up its green screened arse and 1995’s Space Truckers was as about as close as we last got to this kind of cosmic adventure. And Space Truckers wasn’t really fun, cosmic or adventurous… Hopefully you get my point? This is, in spades. Firefly and Serenity were a lone beacon for an all but abandoned genre 10 years ago. It existed on the raggedy edge, giving a glimmer of respite to sci-fi fans that we would get our genre back. Now with a Guardians and Awakening Forces still fresh in the mouth it might not seems quite so important. But at the Ealing ABC, before they knocked it down, that autumn night I caught this, it was like coming home. Who cares about the occasional fuzzy bit of CGI when Glau is so balletic in her smackdowns or Adam Baldwin so self centredly scuzzy in his anti-villian banter? Popcorn.

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