 Serenity was a sci-fi action blockbuster based on a cult classic Firefly, directed by Joss Whedon, and it features Nathan Fillion. People really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it, and that's not what I'm talking about today. Not even close. I'm talking about 2019 Serenity, a movie that no one saw or thought about ever again. Let's start. You might be asking yourself, why is Adam talking about 2019 Serenity? You also might be asking yourself, why I insulted you with such a comically stupid voice. It's because I don't respect you or your opinions. Make sure to subscribe for more movie reviews. Obviously, I'm joking. I project because I hate myself. You know who else hates me? Ethan Davis. He's a Mithril member on Patreon at patreon.com slash Adam does movies for a mere $30. He gets to request a movie and I have to review it, no matter what. In all seriousness, thank you very much Ethan and all other Patreons, along with YouTube join members. Your commitment to my channel doesn't go unnoticed and it's highly appreciated. Let's begin Serenity. One thing Serenity has going for it are beautiful actors. Great actors. In fact, we got Matthew McConaughey in this. We got Anne Hathaway playing a blonde. If you thought she was good looking as a brunette, woo hoo hoo. She's a smoke show as a blonde. We also have some great supporting actors, Jamon Hansu, Diane Lane, and Jason Clark. The movie is also very pretty to look at. It takes place on a remote island in the middle of nowhere, a nice fishing hub. And it was written and directed by Stephen Knight, who did Locke, which I never saw, and maybe some other things you might be familiar with, but I'm not. For all intents and purposes, this is the only film I've seen by him, and I'm not inclined to really watch another one based on this. That said, this is far from the worst movie I've ever seen. It's also far from the most compelling one. It does take a lot of big swings, though. They just unfortunately don't really add up. I am going to spoil this movie because I don't think a lot of people have seen it or have any intention of watching it, and I wouldn't say it's necessarily something I recommend you spend two hours watching. The movie's genre is a little tough to pin down, but I would say it's a thriller slash murder mystery noir. It has some pretty painful dialogue, which will make sense when you find out what's happening here, and it also has some different rabbit trails that don't really go anywhere. They're almost red herrings of sorts, because at the end of the day, this is a picture about a father and son's relationship, about their connection to each other, and how that blossoms as this movie unfolds. We're gonna spend most of our time with Matthew McConaughey, aka Baker Dill. Goes by Dill for most of the film. He's a simple man. He's a fisherman. He's lived his entire life in this town, out on this island, and really all he knows are the people here, the small population of folks who know every single thing going on in the island. There's no secrets to be kept here. He's not a successful man, doesn't have any love in his life. Occasionally, he'll stick it in Diane Lane for some money. It's an amicable relationship and one that he turns to when he needs the comfort and the cash, because he's not the greatest fisherman, mainly because his pride and ego get in the way. He wants to go after a certain fish in this ocean. Think grumpier old men, but without the humor or charm. Obviously, what he's after isn't really a fish. That's just a symbol for a deep-seated inner issue he's got. Is it his emotion playing out, though? Or is it how he was programmed? Which really gets to the crux of this film. And your compulsion is a rule in a game. About 45 minutes into the picture, the writer slash director hits us with an atomic bomb of a revelation. One that I can't imagine anyone saw coming, because they didn't really do a very good job of hinting towards it or leading us there. And once we find out this revelation, at least I was just kind of scratching my head thinking, how? Why? It turns out our buddy Dill isn't real. He's a Ryan Reynolds free guy avatar trapped inside a Truman Show-esque town. I mean, he's not even technically an avatar. He's an NPC. He's the main character of the simulated world. Yet somehow he has a mind of his own and free will that his son programmed him to based on, I imagine, the personality of the kid's real father, who died often war years ago. Now, you must be thinking to yourself, wow, Adam holds his son to be able to accomplish this. He must be in his like 40s at this point, a super genius. No, he's like 12. He's like 12 years old. He coded in an entire world, in secret, in his bedroom, while his mom and boyfriend were in the other room fighting. His milf of a mother, Anne Hathaway, of course, she's also a character inside the video game. She shows up to Dill's ship one day and gives him a proposition marked, fuck you. She says, listen, dude, I know you and I, this whole thing we have. It's toxic. It's not going to work out. But I need you to kill the new man in my life. He's rich. He's powerful. And he's a total D-bag. He's hitting me. He's yelling at me. And he might go after our kid next. So I need you to take care of business before he takes care of business. Fisherman Dills at a crossroads, Britney Spears. And so is his son in the real world, who doesn't know how to deal with what's going on around him. So he's programming furiously thinking, like, if my dad in the game can solve his issue, that'll give me the courage to solve the issue in real life. Meaning, I'll kill this guy myself. It's kind of a cool idea. There's definitely interesting things here. And obviously I'm just kind of glossing over some of the other stuff. Like I mentioned earlier, the reason people have, like, weird dialogue is because they're NPCs. They can't really be programmed to say certain things. They know certain events. And they kind of lead Dill down different roads. It's just not knowing that ahead of time. It's like, okay, the dialogue's just really bad. And it doesn't seem quite like video game dialogue. So it's just kind of in this weird place. I'll get that. For you, Marilyn Monroe fans out there, I should also point out that Anne Hathaway is channeling her in the performance she's giving. All the way down to calling her lover Daddy. If that does something for you, maybe you do want to check out Serenity, or at least some of the clips. I so wanted my daddy to catch me a big fish today. That said, this movie doesn't go very hard. It's only PG-13. So the most you get is maybe like a tiny upper shot of the ass cheeks. Nothing much else. It's disappointing. I can't quite remember, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say we get full-backal from Matthew McConaughey, who I think by law is required to be naked in every movie he's ever done, along with being on a beach at some point. This is definitely a movie I could watch again and probably pick up on a few other clever things going on. It is really hard to wrap my head around the fact that this kid programmed this world, though, with state-of-the-art graphics and whatnot. It's a tough pill to swallow. It really is, especially when the world he's living in isn't futuristic. The ending is touching. It's sweet. I did really like the father-son connection, too. I thought it worked really well. As for the characters, though, they're all kind of bland, down on their luck. It's just not that captivating. So lofty ideas, an okay execution, but at the end, it's just not really anything I would have you go out and watch on your own, unless you're bored. And you want to watch something a little bit different, a little bit out there, then maybe give Serenity a shot. Again, thank you, Brian Davis, for recommending this film. You, too, can be like this kid in Serenity. Play God. Become a myth-thrill member on Patreon and make me watch something I don't want to and review it. Plus, give you a shout-out on top of it. How amazing. Like the video if you had some fun. Subscribe if you haven't as I post tons of movie-related content each and every week. Hopefully, I'll see you around. Take care. Oh, wow, you're still here. If you want to continue the conversation, I have a Discord channel at Adam Does Movies. I'm on TikTok, Adam Does Movies, and I even film other movie stuff on Twitch Live at twitch.tv slash, you guessed it, Adam Does Movies. 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