Over at Blogcritics, Matt Moore has this review of Serenity:

What really stood out was the writing, of course. The characters are mostly drawn from action film archetypes (there’s the amoral tough guy, the spunky woman [well, several spunky women], the conflicted leader) and they could have been cardboard flat. Instead they were all very human, reacting to situations and each other unpredictably, but always in ways that make sense. There were also lots of classic Whedon bits: extremely funny lines in the middle of intense action, emotionally crushing blows, and lifting moments of victory. Sometimes all three in the same shot.

Afterwards Zombyboy (he’s got a review with links to other reviews posted here) mentioned that he saw a strong anarcho-libertarian thread running through the picture. He’s absolutely right. Mal, the captain of the Serenity, fought on the losing side of a rebellion against the autocratic Alliance. Now he thinks only of himself. Well, only of himself and his crew. Well, only of himself and his crew until the good of the entire universe gets in the way.

Update: Danial Drezner does a great review. But my favorite part was this quote from Jacob Levy:

This is not a genre-buster like Matrix or even a genre-redefiner like Blade Runner. It’s more of an ante-raiser like Alien: “See? This thing that we’ve gotten used to seeing done badly can be done really, really well.” For Alien, it was making a monster movie genuinely suspenseful, scary, and visually compelling. For Serenity, it’s making space opera morally serious and centered on complete characters with convincing relationships and first-rate dialogue. I predict that it will make watching Star Wars or Star Trek movies harder to do without cringing.

Most of the Star Wars saga already makes me cringe.

Update 2: Movies Online: two 10s and a 9