0 - Eureka Street

flash 1n the pan
Scene from joss Whedon's Serenity.
Far from serene
Serenity, dir. Joss Whedon. Not many TV
series that ge t cancelled before they even
fi nish their first series get turned into bigbudget
(well, OK, medium-budget) feature
films. But then most TV series don't
spring from the mind of Joss Whedon.
For those of you who don't already know,
Whedon was the writer, producer, and
sometimes director of Buffy the Va mpire
Slayer and its spin-off, Angel. Firefly was
to be his new baby- a sci-fi western set in
a post-civil war galaxy where folks swear
in Chinese and the Alliance (think Ya n­
kees) ruthlessly crushes any remnants of
Browncoat (think Confederate) resistance.
As with Whedon's previous work, the
series featured a quirky, genre- blending
premise, his trademark snappy dialogue,
gunfights, kung fu and comedy seamlessly
woven with surprising moments
of genuine pathos. It got cancelled ll episodes
into its first season, but the dedication
of its fans (they paid for ads in Variety
magazine lobbying for the series to be
resumed) and the DVD sales of the unfinished
series were enough to convince Universal
to put up the cash for a feature-film
version: Seren ity.
The story follows ex-Browncoat Mal
Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his crew of
smugglers as they un knowingly take on
boa rd some very dangerous cargo in River
Tam (Summer Glau). River has escaped
from some kind of experimental torture
by the Alliance, which has turned her
both psychic and schizophrenic- psychic
enough to know secrets the Alliance wants
kept secret, but too insa ne to know that she
knows them . The Alliance wants her back
before she comes to her senses. Squeeze
Mal and his crew between the Alliance
and the Reavers (think cannibalistic zornbie
Hell's Angels) and the fun begins.
Whedon does a surprisingly good job
of compacting the series-long story arcs,
multifaceted ensemble performances and
shifting character perspectives of Firefly
into a two-hour feature without losing too
much of the complexity of the series. (He
even manages to tie up one of the story
threads left dangling by the abrupt cancellation
of the series-the origins of the
mysterious Reavers.)
It may not have the most original of
plots, but it manages to be funny, clever
and full of action, with none of the turgid
mysticism of the Matrix fi lms or the
bloated self-importance of the recent Star
Wars instalments. You certainly don't
need to have seen the series to enj oy it,
but if you like the film, grab the series on
DVD and keep on enjoying the fun.
-Allan James Thomas
Spooky spoofy fun
Wallace etJ Gromit: Th e Curse of the Were­
Rabbit, dir. Steve Box and Nick Park.
Inside the cinema are more adults than
children- ! suspect this is because parents
would rather have their children outside on
a warm spring day. The five-year-old sitting
behind me laughs hysterically throughout,
and gives us all a running commentary:
'Mummy, look at the funny man and
his doggie! Mummy Is the funny man all
right The dog's coming
to save him, Mun1my,
look! ' Some cinem agoers
appreciate things like
plot and story, others look
for deft cinematography,
or laughs, or originality-sometimes
you get
to review a film that has
all these qualities.
Wallace etJ Gromit:
The Curse of the Were­
Rabbit is the latest
full-length feature from
Aardman Animations.
After the disappointing
Chicken Run, it's widely
seen as a return to form
for the Academy Award-
Bumbling, quixotic inventor Wallace and
his taciturn genius-dog companion Gromit
come alive in the appea ling style with
which British-based Aardm an fi rst caught
major international attention, in their
classic The Wrong Trou sers. Sets, models
and characters are handcrafted, giving
a more solid feel to the action-utterly
refreshing when compared with t he highdefinition
machined graphics in Shrel< and
Madagascar. This movie took five years to
make, and the careful artifice is visible:
thumbprints on the characters give it a
lovingly homemade feel. Even in the age of
cutting-edge computer-animated features,
it manages to surprise and delight.
Wallace and Gromit ru n Anti-Pesto,
the village humane pest controllers, and
are called upon to tackle a plague of vegetable-crazed
bunnies and one mysterious,
very large 'beast': the were-rabbit.
Employing an eclectic array of Heath
Robinson-style devices for capturing and
subduing the irrepressibly cheeky ra b­
bits, Wallace and Gromit are indispensable
in the sleepy English village where
the action takes place (keep an eye out for
sight gags: bumper stickers, book titles
and shop sign s) which is preparing for the
annual giant vegetable-growing competition.
The contest consumes the village
with an at times unholy lust for growing
the plumpest pumpkins and producing
the biggest marrows- the local vicar is
ta ken over by vegie fever.
Lady Campanula 'Totty' Tottington
(voiced by Helena Bonham Carter) is
host of both the vegie competition
and, unwittingly, the u neven contest
winning animators. Wild times in Wallace & Cromit: Th e Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
48 EU REKA STREET NOVEMBER- DECEMBER 2005