Last night Princess Lula and I caught a screening of Serenity at the Metreon in San Francisco. It was darn good. As part of a crashcourse lead-in to the movie, we watched the entire series "Firefly," with catching the last two episodes only hours before we jumped into a cab to the theater.

The television series, I thought, was uneven. When it was good, it was very very good. I really liked Jayne and Wash. The captain got a bit too moody for my tastes, but he at least was always entertaining to watch. Kaylie's an adorable button, and the Shepherd was great. Everyone else, though, didn't really click it for me.

Quite often the show misfired and felt padded, in my opinion. At its worst, I would complain that if you trimmed the requisite and character-independent sarcastic filler out of the dialogue, you'd be left with a 22-minute show. But only a few episodes really tested that particular patience (with "War Stories" being the worst).

But any misgivings about the series do not apply to the movie. The movie is the best of the best and moreso. Some elements, particularly practical action, felt constrained -- as if the folks involved hadn't yet realized the elbow room afforded them by a feature film. And the level of tension between Simon and Mal seemed awfully dialed up from the start of the film. But any complaints are petty and minor -- this is a very entertaining movie and one that I hope continues the franchise because this is one universe I wouldn't mind visiting again.

My only legit gripe: I'm a big opponent of what my old roommate Mike has labelled "Jungle Gym Endings." See -- I hate it when in movies, they've gone to the trouble of setting up character motivations, weaknesses, strengths, intellect... all these variables that make up the heroes and villains and their essential quests... and it all comes down to their skills on monkeybars to save the day.

It's very symptomatic of properties that have made the transition from smallscreen TV to bigscreen features. It indicates that deep-down, TV writers have been dying to include jungle gym endings in their shows but can't afford it, so it's the first thing they try to do on the big screen.

Remember Star Trek: First Contact? Picard, the brains behind the Enterprise, has to do a trapeze act in a wifebeater over a roiling cloud of flesh-eating coolant to save the day. It more or less happens again in Star Trek; Insurrection. I, Robot had the jungle gym ending to end all jungle gym endings -- where the fate of incredibly advanced computer brain and her endless legions of robots rested on someone's ability to somersault and flip from cables.

Well, Serenity has a jungle gym ending too. It earns some points by having the character subjected to the jungle gym ending comment on just how ridiculous the physical surroundings are, but still...

Jungle gym endings have joined well-lit sewers and spacious ventilation shafts in the annals of sci-fi cinematic cliches.

Bottom line: Serenity is great. There is real emotion, real excitement, real laughs and it doesn't outstay its welcome. 8/10.

ph