Star Trek (Paramount)
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence, and brief sexual content.
Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Ben Cross, Winona Ryder.
Written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.
Directed by J.J. Abrams
GRADE: A
REVIEW
By Dan MetcalfThe popular culture phenomenon of
Star Trek just keeps cheating death. Just when we thought Hollywood had squeezed the last droplet of juice from the 60s TV series and its subsequent offspring, along comes another big screen incarnation of
Star Trek, only this time it's a prequel based on the original TV crew of the Starship Enterprise.
Chris Pine plays the young James Tiberius Kirk, whose father was a Star Fleet captain for only a few minutes and died while saving his crew from the evil clutches of Nero (Eric Bana), a renegade Romulan starship captian bent of vengeance over the annihilation of his home planet. Nero blames a certain Vulcan named Spock for failing to save Romulus from being turned into a black hole and killing everyone on it.
The main story picks up several year later as Kirk reluctantly joins Star Fleet and begins to meet all the people who will eventually make up the future Enterprise crew, including Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Karl Urban), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and of course, Spock (Zachary Quinto from NBC's Heroes). Don't worry, I didn't forget the Enterprise's lovable future engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (Simon Pegg). He shows up later in the movie.
The cadets at Star Fleet are thrust into action before their training is over when Nero again threatens the universe. The Enterprise's current Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) must rely on the young cadets to save him, the ship, and the universe from extinction at the hands of Nero, who begins his destructive mission with the planet Vulcan in an attempt to lure Spock out. Without getting too deep into the science of Trekology, suffice to say Nero and others come and go throughout the story via what's called 'space-time continuum' - or time travel - a condition that always accompanies the afore-mentioned black holes.
When Pike is captured, the young cadets are left to command the Enterprise on their own, which leads to a considerable amount of power struggles, especially one between Kirk and Spock, leading to Kirk's being kicked off the ship and banished to an ice planet. After narrowly escaping a few gruesome creatures, Kirk stumbles upon a much older Spock (I know, the time travel thing gets a little confusing if you're not used to the Final Frontier), once again reprised by good old Leonard Nimoy.
Old Spock helps Kirk hook up with Scotty, who happens to be manning a Star Fleet outpost on the same ice planet, and has the technical expertise to transport them back to the Enterprise, even as it hurtles through space at warp speed. Spock accomodates Kirk and Scotty because he knows they will help fix the future and save the universe from Nero's evil plan.
When Kirk returns, he takes over command of the ship and uses his awesome leadership skills to guide the crew into saving earth and the rest of the universe.
For the Trekkie (or as some prefer to be called 'Trekker')
Star Trek should be a real treat. We live in an age where incredible computer-generated special effects show us what could have been if Gene Roddenberry and the original crew could have used such technology. One of the charms of the original 1960s series is the cheesy special effects, movie sets, make up and costumes of the day. But even with a plethora of CG, the charm and chemistry of the original characters as seen in their youth is not lost in the big-budget movie.
Full credit goes to Director-producer J.J. Abrams (the brainchild behind ABC TV's
Lost series) for keeping that charm and chemistry alive in a whole new cast. Chris Pine captures the devil-may-care persona of William Shatner's Kirk very well, without doing an impersonation of Shatner. Zachary Quinto's Spock is not a caricature of Nimoy; neither is Simon Pegg's Scotty. The best non-impersonation of a
Star Trek character award goes to Karl Urban (you may remember him as Eomer in
The Lord of the Rings trilogy)for his performance as Dr. McCoy. I can't say enough for all the main cast members who pulled off the feat of stepping into already-established roles without seeming like a Vegas act.
For those unfamiliar with world of
Trek, some of the funniest and more poigniant moments may be hard to enjoy, but even folks who have never seen a single episode of
Star Trek will get the humor behind such terms as "beam me up" or "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a physicist!" Such catch phrases are already engrained into the pop-culture fabric of present times. For those who are familiar with
Star Trek, the jokes and references are even funnier.
Abrams may have gone where others have boldly gone before. The good news is he's done so very well.
May the
Star Trek franchise live long and prosper.
