The theatre was smaller than we expected.  The lights went down, and Joss Whedon appeared on the screen, causing everyone to start cheering.  He spoke for several minutes – basically saying that this movie would never have been made except for the fans and thanking us.  He was funny, and urged everyone to keep spreading the word.

Then the movie started.  There will be spoilers, but I’ll keep it minor.  It opened with a flashback sequence which basically served to get everyone up to speed, but it did it in a very non-obtrusive way that also started the storyline very nicely.  After the opening flashbacks it moved to the ship and I think there were about five minutes that kept the entire audience laughing.  It was also interesting that as each character appeared, the audience cheered for them. 

The movie revolved around River and Simon this time – that was the major story arc that was starting in the TV show and that is what the movie seems to be about.  River is amped up quite a bit in the movie, she’s scary in parts, and Mal is quite a bit darker.  The movie is quite dark as well, it’s humorous and fun but there are very serious events in the film and that shows through. 

The basic plot is that the government is after River, and River ends up with some memories that make her want to go to a planet called Miranda, which unfortunately is on the other side of Reaver controlled space (yes, Reavers are a large presence in this movie!)   

And one more spoiler – there’s a massive space battle at the end.  I truly wished that was longer though – it looked amazingly cool! 

Everything else I could say about the movie gets to be too spoilerish – the brief review is that Karen and I loved this movie.  It was funny, it was gripping, and it never slowed down.  The plot was well structured – I come out of movies a lot these days groaning about huge plot holes or stupid things that were just done to further the plot, and thinking back there’s only one spot that I could poke a stick at – the captain turned his back on someone that he should have known better than to do, and that was out of character but led to the next sequence.  Everything else – wonderful. 

All I can say is that this was a two hour twenty minute movie and I don’t recall anyone getting up to go to the bathroom.

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