Fans of Joss Whedon will know far more about his feature film directorial debut, Serenity than could be crammed into this review. They’ll know that the film is a spin-off from a sci-fi TV series called Firefly which, despite apparent acclaim from critics and audiences, was cancelled midway through its first series. They’ll know that Whedon has indulged his taste for teenage girl warriors again — rather than the perky, pop-socked Buffy we have brooding psychic, River, a 17-year-old programmed by the Universe’s dominant coalition forces to be the deadliest weapon yet conceived. She looks like Avril Lavigne throwing the mother of all teenage strops. Whedonites will know that the action is set 500 years in the future and they’ll probably forgive the fact that, in the crew quarters of Serenity, a scrap heap of a spaceship, there’s a coffee machine that you could buy in any decent-sized department store.

But Whedon fans are not really the issue here. There’s no doubt that they’ll flock to the cinema to catch this latest offering from the pen of the master. The question is, what, if anything, does Serenity have to offer those who never caught an episode of Firefly and who remain immune to the appeal of a cheerleading blonde doing battle with the undead?

Although the thumbprint of its TV roots is smeared all over Serenity, the film is surprisingly successful. Whedon’s whistle-stop tour of the Firefly world gives us enough background information to put the story into context, but stops short of haranguing us with detail. A meagre budget compared with that of many other sci-fi pictures has actually worked in the movie’s favour. Rather than relying on a wall-to-wall carpet of CGI effects, Whedon’s script takes the time and effort to get to know its characters. And although some, such as the tough-guy mercenary Jayne (he gets cross a lot) and the mooning, lovelorn mechanic Kaylee (she’s a bit wet), remain two-dimensional, Whedon is generous with choice lines. The linchpin of this ensemble is Captain Mal Reynold (a likeable Nathan Fillion), a former freedom fighter turned outlaw, his idealist’s conscience constantly wrestling with the survivalist pragmatism necessary to make it in the wilder fringes of outer space.

After the portentousness of the later Star Wars films, it’s refreshing to see a sci-fi film that realises and revels in the inherent ridiculousness of the genre. But while nobody could accuse Serenity of taking itself too seriously, you sense a quiet confidence on the part of Whedon that he has just given birth to his first movie franchise.

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