“Somewhere out there, there’s you and me. Somewhere”.

“Serenity” is the newest thriller/noir film to hit theaters. It features a stellar cast, with Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway starring. It’s written and directed by Steven Knight, an English screenwriter who also wrote 2002’s “Dirty Pretty Things”, 2016’s “Allied” and 2018’s “The Girl in the Spider’s Web”. With such great minds behind and in front of the camera, what could go wrong?

Almost everything, apparently.

“Serenity” tells the story of Baker Dill, a fisherman on the tropical island of Plymouth. He lives a quiet life until his past catches up with him in the form of his ex-wife Karen Zariakas. She begs Dill to take her abusive new husband out fishing and throw him overboard, leaving him for the sharks. Dill weighs his options as right, wrong and even reality begin to blur.

While this might sound like an interesting setup for a movie, “Serenity” does absolutely nothing to make it work. It’s like a train wreck — but all you want to do is look away.

It amazed me to find out that writer and director Steven Knight was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenwriting in 2002, because “Serenity” features some of the worst writing I have ever seen in any medium. The writing and direction manage to make Anne Hathaway laughably bad, which I didn’t think was possible.

Matthew McConaughey gives the worst performance of his entire career. He delivers his lines the way I would expect a brand-new actor in a crappy horror flick to deliver them, not an A-list star. Anne Hathaway overacts the entire film, giving some of the most laughable lines I have ever heard in cinema history.

I hesitate to even mention the supporting cast, as they were almost as bad as the film’s stars and altogether forgettable.

The best thing that I can say about “Serenity” is that a few of the shots look good. The film manages to mess even that up, however, by throwing in some of the worst CGI fish I have ever seen.

While the script is awful for the entire movie, I was kept interested for the first half. The mystery was genuinely interesting. I wanted to know what Dill would do, and I was willing to put up with some bad dialogue to see. Around the middle of the second act, however, they reveal something which makes the film laughably bad, souring the entire experience.

I won’t spoil it for you, but here’s the catch: “Serenity” tries to make the jump from grounded thriller to borderline science fiction. It really doesn’t work at all.

“Serenity” may seem like an interesting thriller, but trust me, it isn’t. The film’s terrible acting, writing, and direction make it one of the worst films I’ve seen in theaters in the past few years. Do yourself a favor and throw this one back into the water.

1/5 Stars