Movie Review: Star Trek (2009)

Stars: 4 out of 5
Pros: Action, character development, laughs

Cons: The "reboot" aspect

The Bottom Line:

With this movie out

Star Trek franchise will always

Live long and prosper

"You are the Captain Now, Mr. Kirk."

When I started watching science fiction in college, Star Trek spin offs Deep Space 9 and Voyager were on the air.  I enjoyed them (not Enterprise so much) and the movies that hit the theater, but I never did become a huge fan.  Still, the idea of Star Trek getting a chance on the big screen again excited me, so I went with a couple of friends to see it this weekend.  While I didn't enjoy it as much as they did, I certainly enjoyed it.

The movie is an epic journey that covers 25 years of time.  It starts the day that James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is born.  Through brief clips, we watch him grow up to become the "smartest repeat offender in Iowa" before joining Star Fleet.  Meanwhile, we also watch Spock (Zachary Quinto) grow up on Vulcan.  Half Vulcan and half Human, Spock struggles with where he really belongs.

Just as Kirk is finishing his academy training, a major threat appears.  Nero (Eric Bana), a Romulan, has been waiting 25 years to extract his revenge.  But just what is his plan?  Can Kirk stop it?  And where will the next member of the Enterprise crew pop up?

Even though I've only seen maybe half a dozen of the Original Series episodes, I knew enough to know what characters to watch for.  And a few of them pop up in the best places.  I actually had to laugh the first time we saw Scotty (Simon Pegg).  They take some liberties with the characters (or my understanding of them at least), but it worked well for this movie.

When I described this movie as an epic journey, I wasn't exaggerating.  It feels much longer than its running time.  That's not a bad thing because I was entertained the entire time.  The scenes with the early Kirk and Spock offer interesting juxtaposition between the two.  And they also provide some funny moments.  Once the villain reemerges, things get much more intense and stay that way for the rest of the film.

The film does an excellent job of balancing drama with laughs.  While there are quite a few quiet, serious moments, I laughed just as much.  The one liners were funny and perfectly fit the characters.  Yet those quiet moments really helped develop Kirk and Spock (and the rest to a lesser degree) and set them up for further stories.

And there's the action.  Yes, we do get a phaser fight or two, but there was plenty of hand to hand combat.  I'm not sure how in keeping that is with the original, but it make the film even more personal.

The cast pulls it off admirably.  I've only seen Chris Pine as a romantic lead before, but he makes a good action hero here.  I am not at all surprised to say that Zachary Quinto nailed Spock.  (And I didn't even have a hard time rooting for him after three years of watching him on Heroes.)  I'm not familiar enough with the crew of the original series to say how any of the cast did in capturing the characters, but I found all their performances believable.  Zoe Saldana delivered a strong, fleshed out character in the updated Uhura.  Karl Urban was funny as Bones, as was Simon Pegg as Scotty.  The best laughs went to Anton Yelchin as Chekov, however.  Rounding out the original characters, John Cho made a believable Sulu.  And I can't leave out Eric Bana who really did made a convincing villain.

And I can't fault the effects, either.  Obviously, things have come a long ways in recent years, and this movie took full advantage of them.  I've never seen the jumps between light speed and normal space look so believable and cool.

This movie is a reboot of the Star Trek franchise.  I knew that going in.  But it still left me with a very sad feeling at just how they did it.  And this is coming from someone who isn't that familiar with the series.  My friends didn't seem to mind, so I might be alone in this.  Believe me, I did enjoy the film and I would see it again, so this is a small point over all.

I feel like I've been on a grand journey, and I am curious where they will take Star Trek from here.  Yep, sign me up for the sequel.