2005 - SERENITY, an attempt to convert a TV show to a film series

Writer/director Josh Weldon developed a TV series called Firefly sort of a science fiction adventure about some mercenaries flying around the galaxy while being chased by the mysterious Alliance and some weirdo mutants called the Reavers who like to eat people.  Despite Weldon's clever way with dialog and a good cast the series never really caught on but developed a cult following.  Hoping for more mainstream success as a film series Weldon tried again with a film called Serenity featuring the same cast.

Weldon is a clever fellow who can spin witty dialog in rather fantastic films like The Avengers and it's sequel and that Buffy the Vampire series.  Here he had the impossible challenge of condensing the TV series into a film and keeping the mainstream and cult audiences entertained something he doesn't pull off.

Watching Serenity is like coming into the middle of a TV series and having the person next to you try to explain what has been going on during the past episodes.  The movie's screenplay seems very fragmented and there are so many subplots at times it's almost impossible to figure out what is going on.

Still, Weldon is good at mixing this genre stuff and adding humor to it so it isn't to be taken that seriously.  The film has action and lots of spaceships flying around shooting at each other.  Serenity comes off as an attempt to create a hipster version of Star Wars.

119 minutes.

2015- AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON - more of the same

Successfully marketed and hyped as one of the must see summer films, this film isn't that bad and in fact is rather entertaining although way to long.

The gang is back from the first film and this time they are fighting an evil robot who has decided to destroy mankind and take over the world for reasons that aren't entirely clear.  The dialog isn't too bad the action scenes while not really exciting are pretty decent and the whole cast seems to be into the spirit of this superhero spectacular.

So what's the problem.  Well the law of diminishing returns may be starting to kick in.  Ultron the evil robot while evil,  is actually kind of a charming fellow with a personality not unlike the Robinson robot from Lost in Space.  Actually it would have been fun to see his evil plan succeed because if would have at least moved the series into a different direction rather than the usual superhero's save the world stuff.  After all there is only so much you can do with these comic book story lines.

Probably one of the major reasons I enjoyed this film was that it was showing at a decent 2nd run movie theater.  Paying $3.00 a ticket is certainly less painful than full first run prices.

141 minutes

2012 - THE AVENGERS, entertaining but too long comic book movie

There is a lot to enjoy about The Avengers, the film has action, humor and a large entertaining cast of actors actually bringing some conviction to their silly roles as super heroes.

However, this is still a movte based on a comic book.

This film is ridiculously overlong coming in at almost 2 and 1/2 hours.  In the good old days of poorly animated Saturday morning cartoons, this would have been 2 half hour segments of a cartoon series (including commercials) that could tell the story a lot more efficiently and quickly.

Still there is some skill and talent involved in making this kind of crap entertaining.  There are plenty of other super hero movies that aren't even remotely entertaining in spite of being loaded up with action, computer effects and everything else.

143 minutes.