Serenity (2019)    Aviron/Suspense-Thriller    RT: 106 minutes    Rated R (language throughout, sexual content, some bloody images)    Director: Steven Knight    Screenplay: Steven Knight    Music: Benjamin Wallfisch    Cinematography: Jess Hall    Release date: January 25, 2019 (US)    Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke, Diane Lane, Djimon Hounsou, Jeremy Strong, Charlotte Butler, David Butler, Rafael Sayegh.    Box Office: $8.5M (US)/$14.4M (World)

Rating: *

Serenity was bumped from a fall release date to the dump month that is January. What does that tell you? Normally, I’d say it tells you all you need to know about the movie in question. However, that is NOT the case with Serenity. I don’t ordinarily subscribe to hyperbole, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that it’s a one of a kind viewing experience. I’m certain I’ve never seen anything quite like it; I would surely remember a movie as utterly inane and insane as Serenity. It’s a cinematic dark cloud, that’s for sure, but it does have a silver lining. It’s watchable albeit for all the wrong reasons. The first truly bad movie of 2019 is also the best unintentional comedy I’ve seen since Gotti. I got more laughs out of it than I did many of the last decade’s actual comedies combined. I think we’re looking at a new bad movie classic here.

 Serenity, which was released with no marketing that I saw (except for a trailer last summer), is billed as a neo-noir thriller. It stars Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club) as the improbably named Baker Dill, a psychologically scarred Iraq War vet who spends his days swilling rum and taking tourists out on his fishing boat on a tropical island called Plymouth. He’s obsessed with catching this giant tuna he’s named “Justice” (no, that’s not subtle at all). He has his Captain Ahab moment early on when he commandeers a paying customer’s fishing pole after he snags his…. uh, giant white tuna? His first mate is a chap named Duke (Hounsou, Blood Diamond) who more often acts as a moral compass for Baker than anything else.

 One day, a woman from Baker’s past comes back into his life. It’s Karen (Hathaway, Les Miserables), his ex with whom he has a son he hasn’t seen in years. She comes to him with a proposal; she will pay him $10 million to take her abusive, wealthy husband Frank (Clarke, Chappaquiddick) out on his boat, get him drunk and feed him to the sharks. Should he do it or not? It’s the same question asked by many a poor dope when approached by a sexy femme fatale type.

 So far Serenity has all the trappings of a film noir. We think we know where writer-director Steven Knight (Locke) is going with all this. That’s when he pulls a fast one and Serenity really goes off the rails. I won’t say what happens, but trust me when I say it makes an already wacko movie even more so. I’ll also say that instead of clearing things up, it convolutes things further. Okay, enough about that.

 The acting and dialogue in Serenity is just as wacko. It’s especially disheartening when you consider it stars two Oscar winners and two nominees. McConaughey devours the scenery with his crazy, wild-eyed performance in which he spends a disturbing amount of time jumping off cliffs naked (he calls it “taking a shower”) and yelling at the sky like he’s King Lear. Hathaway, with her dark locks dyed blonde, is simply terrible. She’s completely miscast as a femme fatale; she looks lost at sea here. Diane Lane (Unfaithful) plays a character who exists for no other purpose than to have sex with McConaughey (and pay him for it, no less). She serves no function to the plot whatsoever. Clarke’s portrayal of a human monster who drinks too much, beats his wife and hunts for underage girls in a sleazy part of the island is cartoonish at best. Everybody on this island seems off in some way. It’s almost like an insane asylum that reeks of bait and chum. And I haven’t even mentioned the bespectacled, briefcase-toting fellow (Strong, The Big Short) who keeps trying to catch up with Baker. He needs to talk to him, but keeps missing him. This might or might not be a slight spoiler, but I kept waiting for him to walk on water at some point. Don’t read too much into that; it’s just one of many weird thoughts that crept into my head as I incredulously watched Serenity unfold.

 I’m not lying when I say that I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. Serenity is ridiculous, ludicrous, absurd, silly, nonsensical, bizarre, strange, kooky, out there and just plain weird. It makes zero sense even after the big plot twist. It’s a cross between a crazy dream and an acid trip. Does Knight intend for us to take Serenity seriously or is it some kind of parody? It has all the pulp fiction archetypes and story clichés yet it all feels curiously out of place. The story zags when it’s supposed to zig and vice versa. The dialogue is incredibly cheesy. Some of the lines the actors are forced to say even look painful. This movie is laughable. It’s the kind of movie you watch with your friends so you can all make fun of it.

 So what am I saying here? I’m not entirely sure. It’s hard to put into words how I really feel about Serenity. I don’t hate it but I don’t like it either. I’m not saying to see it but I’m not saying to not see it either. I guess what I’m saying is that Serenity needs to be seen to be believed and even then you won’t believe it. It’s like an out-of-body experience in that you’re never sure you saw what you just saw. It’s positively surreal. It’s a bad movie but a great bad movie. Take that however you will.