Star Trek (2009 review)

5 outta 5

Director J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek is a grand summer action flick that re-introduces Star Trek’s iconic characters to the world.  It shows origins of the original Trek series, but changes thing around just enough so you won’t see what’s coming. That aside, the movie is a ridiculous amount of fun. With the generic Wolverine cluttering up theatres, Star Trek is the right flick to see. 

Set hundreds of years in the future, young and brash James Kirk (Chris Pine), joins the space exploration group called Starfleet and butts heads with his superior, the half-human / half-Vulcan Spock (Zachary Quinto).  When a Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana) threatens the galaxy, Kirk ends up aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. Captained by Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) the crew includes Sulu (John Cho), genius Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Doctor McCoy (Karl Urban), Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and, even though it takes him awhile to get there, Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg). Eventually, Kirk learns that Nero is from the future (well, further in the future) and his actions have changed history, creating an alternate universe. 

The coolest thing about the time-travel plot is that it doesn’t negate the previous series.  Batman Begins or Casino Royale says: “everything that happened before was meaningless, this is new.”  When Bale puts on the bat-suit, or Craig orders a Martini, it resonates because someone else did it.  With Star Trek, the time-traveling bad guy has torn apart the lives of Kirk and Co., diverting them from their rightful destiny (ie. The Original Series).  So, when Kirk sits in the chair of the Enterprise, it’s dramatic because he was always supposed to lead the Enterprise.  It an actual plot point.  Everything in Trek “still happened” and then the series loops back on itself.  It’s like a pretzel.  With time-traveling Romulans.   This makes Star Trek a sequel, a prequel, a reboot, and a remake. It’s a seprebootmake! 

Truthfully, you don’t know Trek to enjoy this.  All of the characters have defining moments: Chekov flops his W’s for V’s.  Sulu screws up behind the wheel of the Enterprise but redeems himself later with swordplay skills.  McCoy bickers and complains mightily (it’s amazing how good Urban is here considering he was blandly unmemorable in The Two Towers and Doom).  Scotty, hilariously played by Pegg, is just enjoying the ride.  Uhura is more developed here than she ever was in the original series.  It’s very cool to see how these characters come together.  Before they were simply just there but this movie gives them a reason. 

There’s effective humour that keeps things from getting too serious, and a lot of that comes from Kirk’s cockiness.  One of the movie’s highlights is when he cheats his way through an exam while nonchalantly eating an apple. Pine’s performance is not copying William Shatner (cause nobody could), it takes the essence of Kirk.  The same character transference also occurs with Quinto’s Spock, as his all-to-human emotion cracks his Vulcan stoicism.  Interestingly, this movie casts Kirk and Spock as instant rivals, which makes a lot of sense. Leonard Nimoy, the original Spock, has a small role, but he’s the one who gets the plot moving. Bana’s Nero is compellingly nasty, seething hatred every line.  He has one of the movie’s best bits when he growls to Kirk, “I would rather die in agony than accept assistance from you,” and Kirk snaps back, “You got it.”

Abrams has made the slickest looking Star Trek movie ever.  His handheld camera creates a shaky and immediate intimacy that puts you in this outlandish world.  There’s lots of emotionally powerful stuff, like the birth of Kirk juxtaposed with the final flight of his father. All of the action sequences pop: there’s a brutal fight thousands of feet in the air, Kirk running into the local wildlife on a barren ice-planet, and the space battles are very epic.  The production design is top-notch: re-imagined Enterprise looks like it should, but it has little cool trinkets like the tiny video screens that pop up when someone addresses the crew. Nero’s ship is a menacing horror that is all scary-jags. And the effects look great  – check out the opening shot as camera crawls along a starship to convey it’s sheer sense of size… and then an even bigger one shows up!

Some may gripe about how Star Trek is supposed to be a mirror to social issues, but that’s being narrow-minded. Throughout all series, Trek has bounced from comedy to drama to romance to war narratives to just about anything. That’s why it’s survived for so long: Star Trek is multi-adaptive to any genre.  As long as somebody beams, is wearing those funny jumpsuits, and it preferably all takes place on a ship called Enterprise, then it’s Star Trek.   Slapped with a fresh coat of paint, this Trek is an excellently paced and accessible experience.  It’s not just a great summer movie; it’s great filmmaking.