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Serenity - Firefly's off with everything.

The basic premise of the series is of a disgruntled sergeant from the wrong side of a civil war - taking his corporal and a few other crew on shady jobs on the edge of civilised space. Picking up some passengers adds to the cast and sets the scene when a stowaway is found who is wanted by the government.

The series was canned by Fox because of low viewing figures - but a film was slated to make up for this they renamed it Serenity (the name of the Firefly-class ship the show revolves around)

Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) draws excellent characters and Firefly/Serenity is no exception. The captain Mal is a stone faced soldier whose loyalty is to Himself, his ship, his crew, and his passengers, in that order. His corporal in the Browncoat Army and first mate is Zoe, still calling him "sir", she is his dependable right hand. Countering this is Zoe's husband and Serenities pilot Wash, he is the goofball and is my favourite character. Kaylee the engineer - Joss likes his female characters to be different and she is no exception - hopelessly besotted with one of the passengers she is very cheerful and optimistic, especially when it comes to Serenity. Jayne is the muscle of the crew for the more shadier operations - he is also the most self centric of the characters. The final member of the crew is Inara - she is a "Companion" a sort of legalised prostitute - who hires out one of the ships shuttles for her "business".
The passengers that Mal picks up in the series are equally bizarre. Shepherd Book is a preacher on an unknown mission which is never revealed, Simon Tam is an upright doctor who serves as the medic on board who smuggled his sister River Tam onboard to keep her from the government - who had performed conditioning on her.
The series finishes abruptly as Joss wanted to continue into a second season. The film picks up where the series left off - smoothly and very well for both people who have seen the series and newcomers to the franchise.
I wont spoil the plot - but the characterisation is equally excellent and at one point I truly thought the director was going to kill off the entire crew.
If you enjoy strong characters and a sci-fi universe that smacks of the wild west then go see this film.