Review - Star Trek

In 1968, Gene Roddenberry said he was planning to make a prequel to his beloved television series, Star Trek. Alas, he was never to make this film before he died in 1991, and thus the backstory for the characters he and his fans loved dear were lost forever. In 2005, however, it was decided that they would try to fulfill the creator's idea.

Before today, I had never seen anything Star Trek related. I mean, I've seen clips from episodes and movies, but I've never seen a full episode of any of the series, nor have I seen any of the films. While I was a newcomer to the series (and only because of director J.J. Abrams's involvement), I thought this was a really great way of telling a Star Trek story without making it feel like they were trying to please the fans.

The film follows James Tiberius Kirk and a Vulcan named Spock as they try to keep the universe safe from a group of Romulans who have come from an alternate timeline. I liked how they were able to incorporate time travel into this film without drastically altering anything from the original timeline. There is alteration that takes place, but not enough to alter the future too drastically, yet just enough to manipulate situations for the better.

Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto were excellent as Kirk and Spock, respectively. It was great to see Quinto not staring off blankly, trying to look evil for once. Actually, he is rather emotionless in this film, but that's his character so it works. The performance that stuck out to me the most was that of Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, a school friend of Kirk. I thought he played an interesting character that could lighten up the scene without overshadowing it. Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana, and the rest of the cast all gave good performances as well and had very well written characters for the tasks they were provided.

You can really tell that Abrams was behind this film because it felt an awful lot like his previous work on Lost, Mission: Impossible III and Cloverfield. The themes and aspects of the story are common among his work, but they all fit well into this film. Michael Giacchino once again helms the composer's seat for Abrams and does a stupendous job, as always.

There aren't many complaints I have about this film. I thought Scotty (Pegg) was sort of useless for the most part. His character is vital to the story, but he didn't seem to really do anything when he wasn't doing his job. Apparently in the original series or some other incarnation of the franchise there's a problem they had with the cameras in which the countless lights on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise would temporarily blind the camera with glares. Actually, it might have been on purpose. Regardless, they decided to throw this in here intentionally for I suppose nostalgic purposes, but it comes off as distracting. At times I wanted to just yell at the glares to move out of the way so I could see the film.

What we have here is a film that is not only respectable to the fans of the original series, but is easily accessible to newcomers like myself. There are several throwbacks to the original story, but they never felt forced. I think J.J. Abrams is an angry fanboy. He saw the first two Mission: Impossible films and thought "man, these could be so much better," so he made Mission: Impossible III, and it was great. After that he thought "man, Godzilla is so cool, but the one we got in the 90's was crap," so he made Cloverfield, and it was great. This time he thought to himself "man, I really like Star Trek, but the franchise has been failing lately," and thus he decided to direct the film we have no, and it too is great.

FINAL VERDICT: Loved It, 4/5