No, it's not an 8 out of 10 stars movie. Why?
1 - It's not true to the series. Just because you bring the same characters together and some of the same plot elements, that doesn't equal the same level of quality as the series. Where's the western/cowboy theme? Where's the relaxed banter and genuine feelings of friendship between characters? The series didn't depend on lots of high-powered special effects - unfortunately, they felt the movie needed to, at the expense of everything else. There could have been a better balance of the two.
2 - Too many plot holes, too much didn't make sense. For example, I kept thinking, as I saw at least one other reviewer say, how on earth did these vicious, crazy Reavers have the ability to maintain space travel? What was all of this with River - nothing at all concerning her was logical at all? And, at the end, The Operative just told the Alliance troops to "stand down"? How did he get loose so quickly and why would he let them go?
3 - Not true to your characters. For example, The Operative had the Shepherd and Mr. Universe killed (among many others), but Mal just let him walk away. Why would Mal do that, other than The Operative's potentially being cast in a sequel. The Mal of Firefly wouldn't have.
4 - And, if they (or Joss) dreamed of a sequel, why kill off, unnecessarily, two of the best ongoing characters? On the DVD commentary, Joss said that Wash was killed just because somebody needed to die to prove everybody was in jeopardy. Apparently, nobody else got much more than a hangnail from the final gruesome battle. Why bother? And speaking of the final battle, it was so muddled and dark, it was nearly incomprehensible. All I could really distinguish was River's super kung-fu antics, which were somewhat laughable.
All in all, not a movie worthy of the Firefly series. Too bad, because I would have enjoyed a series of movies as they did with Star Trek.
1 - It's not true to the series. Just because you bring the same characters together and some of the same plot elements, that doesn't equal the same level of quality as the series. Where's the western/cowboy theme? Where's the relaxed banter and genuine feelings of friendship between characters? The series didn't depend on lots of high-powered special effects - unfortunately, they felt the movie needed to, at the expense of everything else. There could have been a better balance of the two.
2 - Too many plot holes, too much didn't make sense. For example, I kept thinking, as I saw at least one other reviewer say, how on earth did these vicious, crazy Reavers have the ability to maintain space travel? What was all of this with River - nothing at all concerning her was logical at all? And, at the end, The Operative just told the Alliance troops to "stand down"? How did he get loose so quickly and why would he let them go?
3 - Not true to your characters. For example, The Operative had the Shepherd and Mr. Universe killed (among many others), but Mal just let him walk away. Why would Mal do that, other than The Operative's potentially being cast in a sequel. The Mal of Firefly wouldn't have.
4 - And, if they (or Joss) dreamed of a sequel, why kill off, unnecessarily, two of the best ongoing characters? On the DVD commentary, Joss said that Wash was killed just because somebody needed to die to prove everybody was in jeopardy. Apparently, nobody else got much more than a hangnail from the final gruesome battle. Why bother? And speaking of the final battle, it was so muddled and dark, it was nearly incomprehensible. All I could really distinguish was River's super kung-fu antics, which were somewhat laughable.
All in all, not a movie worthy of the Firefly series. Too bad, because I would have enjoyed a series of movies as they did with Star Trek.