released 01 dec 09 / last mod 01 dec 09 / greg goebel / public domain
* At the beginning of director J.J. Abram's reboot of the STAR TREK franchise, we meet young James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine), a young man of considerable capability and a big head of steam who's going to waste in the future cornfields of Iowa -- where he spends his time chasing girls and getting into trouble. After an attempt in a bar to pick up a pretty Federation Starfleet cadet named Uhura (Zoe Saldana), who is completely unimpressed, leading to a mindless brawl that leaves him battered and bloody, Kirk is befriended by a Starfleet officer named Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), who had known Kirk's late father. Pike suggests Kirk stop squandering his potential and join the Starfleet. Kirk sleeps on it and signs up.
At Starfleet Academy, Kirk aces his studies but his loose-cannon ways get him in deep trouble, and into a confrontation with the crisply logical half-Vulcan Commander Spock (Zach Quinto). However, at the last moment Kirk is given a reprieve when the spacetime shockwaves of a galactic calamity create an emergency for the Federation. He throws himself into action as though born for it, to end up forging an alliance with Spock.
* I had misgivings about picking up the STAR TREK movie, since I had never been wildly enthusiastic about STAR TREK even when it was new back in the 1960s -- and overall it didn't improve with age, ultimately degenerating into dull oblivion. I also had misgivings about J.J. Abrams taking the helm of STAR TREK, since a few seasons of wading through his LOST TV series suggested he was fond of wretched-excess plot contrivances, as well as too serious by half with material that hardly supported it.
As a result, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that Abrams took such weary story materials and did such an impressive job with them. STAR TREK is a well-produced, fast-paced action-adventure flic, demonstrating very little of the pretentiousness that was such a trademark of the old franchise. The story moves from one (sometimes literal) cliffhanger to the next at a breakneck clip; a few of the plot devices don't bear too much close examination -- would a rowdy Starfleet cadet like Kirk ever be entrusted with so much authority so quickly? -- but STAR TREK avoids the trap of taking itself too seriously and never bogs down. Abrams even manages to throw in a really surprising and effective bit of romance that radiates high-temperature passion without resorting to sleaze.
The cast does very well. Pine manages to capture the arrogance of the headstrong Kirk, though he replaces the pomposity of the old Kirk with a "fools rush in" recklessness. Qinto's Spock is a good read on the half-Vulcan who provides such a perfect and essential balance to the wild Kirk. Saldana's Uhura has a relatively prominent role, playing it as cool, dignified, and elegant.
The rest of the crew is more or less just introduced. Karl Urban's Dr. McCoy is a close match to the original; John Cho's Ensign Sulu and Anton Yelchin's Ensign Chekhov don't have enough to do to make much of an impression. British indy-movie star Simon Pegg does have enough space to give a distinctive read on Commander "Scotty" Scott as something of a loose-screw genius who less defies the rules than fails to notice they exist -- though he still doesn't contribute much to the story. Future installments are in the works and we'll hopefully see more of these folks.
Finally, the plot, if admittedly something of a contraption, pulls off the impressive trick -- thanks to the contribution of Leonard Nimoy -- of reinventing STAR TREK while providing in a wheels-within-wheels fashion tidy continuity with all that came before. STAR TREK is not the kind of movie that will win an Oscar, but it did do well at the box office, and one can only hope that future installments do as well or better. As Nimoy put it so appropriately: "Good luck."
