It was a good movie.
It was, in my opinion, the best sci-fi movie to come out in years. It even beat the Star Wars movies, in so far as it will be watched over and over again.
I do recommend that anyone who liked the movie also purchase the "Firefly" tv series. It is the prelude to the movie, essentially, and funny... very funny.
What's amazing to me is that Whedon does such a good job in portraying a point of view that he doesn't personally share. As he put it in an interview at the beginning of the series
"Mal's politics are very reactionary and 'Big government is bad' and 'Don't interfere with my life,"' Whedon explains. "And sometimes he's wrong -- because sometimes the Alliance is America, this beautiful shining light of democracy. But sometimes the Alliance is America in Vietnam: we have a lot of petty politics, we are way out of our league and we have no right to control these people. And yet! Sometimes the Alliance is America in Nazi Germany. And Mal can't see that, because he was a Vietnamese."
http://flatdisk.net/exonews/xtra/josswhedon.htm
The series' libertarian bent shows up in this line from River Tam...
"We meddle... People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome."
"Meddlesome" is a good term to describe Big Gumbint whether of the liberal or conservative variety.