[This review contains SPOILERS]
Tasked with the
near-impossible responsibility of reviving a franchise that even most diehard
fans will admit has been on life support, director J.J. Abrams changed the rules
to his own Kobayashi Maru.
In other words (for those
of you not fluent in Starfleet-ese), he cheated.
"Star Trek" is a high-impact,
high-stakes galactic adventure with a healthy dose of humor. Abrams has crafted
a Trek movie
at once familiar and completely foreign to those well versed in Starfleet lore,
one that takes the franchise in a bold new direction thanks to inventive
storytelling and tremendous casting.
"Star
Trek" the franchise
has been languishing in suspended animation for years, banished to the cheap
seats of the pop culture universe.
Whether it was a
long-overdue realization of that sad-but-true fact, Abrams'
clout in the industry or a combination of the two, it seems every allowance
and effort was made to reinvigorate Trek.
The result is a spectacular success.
The thrust of the film's
story is set up almost immediately in the prologue. The U.S.S. Kelvin is under
attack from a monstrously imposing Romulan ship, the Narada. Nero (a snarling,
nearly unrecognizable Eric Bana) has traveled back through time with the means
to create black holes capable of destroying planets. He plans to exact revenge
on the Federation, and specifically a familiar ambassador, for what he sees as
a betrayal of his people.
During this initial battle,
the birth of a certain future starship captain with the middle name Tiberius
also takes place.
Years later, we find young
James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) in Iowa. He's wasting his days and potential away,
drinking and getting into bar fights.
When an old crewmate of his
father, Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood), challenges the wayward youth to focus
his anger and energy on a more productive path, Kirk enlists in Starfleet.
As it did in his directing
debut, "Mission:
Impossible III," Abrams' economical and action-oriented filmmaking
style – honed from his TV experience – serves him well here. Things get moving
quickly, and soon we are treated to more action than we've seen in perhaps all
the previous Trek
movies combined.
The highlight is the
spectacular Space Jump sequence; when a not-quite-yet Capt. Kirk, Mr. Sulu and
an overeager shipmate perform a suicide skydive mission onto a mining platform
high above the planet Vulcan.
All that action may have
actually gotten in the way of other parts of the story. Not nearly enough time
is spent at the Academy, where the friendship between Kirk and McCoy presumably
is cemented. It's just a guess, because in the film we are forced to take it at
face value.
And the film's lighter
moments are often awkwardly timed and heavy-handed, including one silly
sequence where Kirk has an allergic reaction during a deadly serious moment.
Considering all the Trek TV shows, movies,
novels, and comic books created over the past
four decades, it was surprising to learn that the tale of how the original
crew of the Enterprise came together, had never been told.
Abrams wanted to distill
that basic origin story to zero in on the franchise's two most familiar faces,
Kirk and Spock.
And wouldn't you know,
before they began history's greatest Bromance, these vastly different beings –
each having endured individual tragedy – hated each other's guts.
Whereas Shatner displayed the
cool of an intergalactic James Bond, Chris Pine's Kirk is all swagger and
unfocused ego. He's angry at the world. And while he doesn't look or sound like
his predecessor, Pine embodies the role as well as anyone could have imagined.
Zachary Quinto had the resemblance
to Leonard Nimoy down, but he excels at showing the struggle to balance his
logical Vulcan side, and the human characteristics he gained from his mother.
And no one gets a rise out
Spock faster than Kirk. First by cheating on his 'unbeatable' test of
character, then by constantly second-guessing strategic decisions. If you
hadn't seen the 79 episodes of TOS (translation – the "Original
Series") and the six feature films starring the original cast, you would
never guess that these two would become the closest of friends.
But it's
the original Spock, Leonard Nimoy, during his brief but essential scenes in
the film, who helps the two see their destinies are intertwined.
"I have been, and always
shall be, your friend," Nimoy tells the younger version of the man who would be
his closest friend. Perhaps the quietest scene in the movie, and it's most
powerful.
By the way, if you haven't
seen any of those adventures before this
movie, it won't matter.
Maintaining consistency
with four decades of Trek
canon would be a nightmare even for Trek
junkies like screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.
So Team Abrams changed the
rules to their own no-win scenario with an ingenious plot twist.
Nero's trip to the past has
disrupted the timeline and changed the future. As he tells Kirk himself during
a fight scene, "James T. Kirk was a great man. But that was another life."
[You think the "Wolverine" production
team is thinking right about now that a time-travel McGuffin would have worked
out better than mind-wiping Adamantium bullets?]
That's not to say the
filmmakers ignored history. There are homages and easter eggs aplenty, from
catchphrases to green alien girls...even a Slusho reference.
As for the re-casts, there
were a few missteps. Karl Urban works a bit too hard on mimicking DeForest
Kelley's cadence as 'Bones' McCoy, and Anton Yelchin's harsh Russian accent as
Chekov borders on self-parody.
Faring much better is John
Cho as Sulu, who turns out to be quite handy in a fight. And Zoe Saldana is a
savvy and sexy Uhura.
And if anyone doubted that
Simon Pegg would steal every scene he appeared in, well, you were wrong!
As anyone who can recite
dialogue from "Wrath of
Khan" knows, a Trek movie is only as good as its villain. Eric Bana
doesn't chew the scenery or flaunt his pecs like Ricardo Montalban, but his
Nero is a mad dog. The Romulan is motivated by payback and Bana embraces Nero's
bloodthirsty rage.
There has been much
discussion about how this new movie is a chance to give this once-proud
franchise a facelift, a chance to modernize it, energize it. Change it.
But "Star Trek" succeeds
primarily because it doesn't change the essence of Trek crafted the franchise's creator Gene
Roddenberry - the optimism of deep space exploration, the vision of a brighter
future for humanity. It's all there, only now the faces are younger, the
gadgets cooler, the pace faster. And Sulu has a ninja sword.
Welcome to the 21st
Century, Star Trek.
We've been waiting.
advertisement
