Star Trek

Terrific summer movie. JJ Abrams reboots the Star Trek franchise by starting, not at the very beginning, but before that: before the 1960’s TV series, before Kirk and Spock and the crew of the Starship Enterprise got acquainted, before the ship was voyaging. It’s clever stuff, because even though there have been ten Star Trek films – six with the original cast – this Star Trek seems like the original movie version of a much loved old story, like you’re seeing favorite characters come to life on screen for the very first time. Or anyway, a youngster version of them.

So we meet James Tiberius Kirk as a brash young man, oozing bad attitude but charming as hell; he gets into a bar brawl with a bunch of clean cut Starfleet recruits, and comes to the attention of Captain Christopher Pike, familiar to true Trekkies as the original commander of the starship Enterprise. Pike, it turns out, wrote his PhD thesis on Kirk’s father, a famously courageous starship captain who saved his crew (as well as his wife and son) by sacrificing himself in a battle with a very mysterious Romulan vessel. Who knew they had PhDs in space? Pike checks up on Kirk, discovers the young man is brilliant, if incorrigible, and talks him into joining Starfleet. “You’ll graduate in four years,” Pike says. “I’ll do it in three,” Kirk rashly responds. And away we go.

Chris Pine is dazzling as Captain Kirk; he deftly pulls out the swaggering essence of the legendary captain without a hint of imitation. Zachary Quinto is slightly less convincing as Spock, but that might be due to his suggestive scenes with the stunning Lt. Uhuru. No icy veined Vulcan there. Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy and Simon Pegg as Scotty both give nods to their legendary characters (very satisfying to Star Trek fans) but also bring a youthful energy – or in Pegg’s case, a youthful goofiness – to their roles.

Of course there’s a bad guy, in this case a Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana). Nero is seething with anger towards Spock; he holds the Vulcan responsible for the destruction of his home planet. He travels through space in a colossal, dangerously armed vessel, confronting Starfleet ships, seeking Spock, hoping to wreak his revenge. His quest is complicated, though, by a rift in the space time continuum that has altered hundreds of years of events. This creates confusion for Nero, and Spock, and occasionally the audience, but it’s still nifty stuff, since it pretty much changes the future, wiping out the adventures of the original Starship Enterprise. That means that this new Enterprise can boldly go where no crew has gone before. Good set up for sequels. Opened strong over Mother’s Day weekend and still playing everywhere. If you happen to catch it on IMAX, let me know what you thought.