Review: ‘Star Trek’

The Summer movie season is poised for launch, and JJ Abrams and crew are about to light the fuse.   ‘Star Trek’ is the perfect movie for this time of year, an epic, sci-fi escapade that brings all sorts of escapist fun into theaters.   It’s got action.   It’s got laughs.   It’s got romance.   Well, a little romance, and not from where you might expect.   But, what’s most important, it’s got brains.

Now, before you think you’re going in to see the $250-million version of ‘Primer,’ let me stifle those belief right now.   This isn’t the most ingenius storyline to come down the pike.   But, where ‘Star Trek’ succeeds where so many, other, big-budget, Summer movies fail horribly, is in the tightly wound ways screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman flesh out the characters.

No one gets lost in the mix.   Everyone has their respective moments to shine.   If you’re favorite ‘Star Trek’ character growing up was Sulu (played here by John Cho), fear not.   He gets his moment.   Same goes for Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Scotty (Simon Pegg), and McCoy (Karl Urban).

The film’s lead characters, Kirk and Spock, played by Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, respectively, clearly have the most amount of screen time, and it’s odd to think that one got billing over the other (Pine over Quinto here).   However, don’t think that just because the driving forces behind the film are Kirk’s destiny and Spock’s logic vs. emotions conflict, this means the other characters in the film get any kind of short-change.

Orci and Kurtzman do an incredible job at taking us back to these characters in their earlier days, long before the Tribbles or Khan showed their faces.   They do two things with their screenplay.   They set it up so that the film can rest gently in with the established canon of the ‘Star Trek’ universe, and they also create a world where anything can happen.   I’m sure Trekkies all over the galaxy would have issues with certain liberties the screenplay takes with the characters and events depicted.   However, all of that naysaying can be brushed aside.

The amazing opening sequence of the film quickly introduces us to Nero (Eric Bana), the villain of the film, who has traveled back in time through a black hole to take on some kind of revenge.   He seeks Mr. Spock, and we get a quick glimpse of the man he is searching for.  Ã‚   It is Leonard Nimoy, the man Quinto will grow into.   After a few introductions, Nero unleashes his strength, and what ensues is both eye-opening and grin-inducing.   With that opening scene, Summer officially kicks in.

We are shown early moments from Kirk and Spock’s childhood.   On their respective home planets, they ready themselves for adulthood, each one in his own way.   Jump forward a number of years when each one is about to join Starfleet Academy (although Kirk doesn’t know it just yet).   I was worried with a “prequel” to the ‘Star Trek’ series and films, Orci and Kurtzman would write a ‘Harry Potter’-esque film that showed the characters going through school, taking classes on warp drives and speaking Klingon.   Fortunately, the screenwriters and Abrams know how lame this would have been, and the storyline instantly progresses three years to when the cadets get their first assignments.   Enter the USS Enterprise.

Orci, Kurtzman, and Abrams never let the film lag, nor do they ever allow the film to fall into ridiculous moments of either hilarity or over-the-top action. Â  We get subtlety with our big-budget bravado in ‘Star Trek,’ and that is something more Summer movie filmmakers should attempt to accomplish. Â  Much of this is found in both the film’s visuals, which are shocking in how grand they are, and the sound.

This is some of the best sound design work heard in recent years, and sound effect editor David Barbee and legendary sound designer Ben Burtt deserve mentions here. Â  The sound in ‘Star Trek’ knows exactly what to do and when to do it. Â  It cuts out in the dead of space (something I, shockingly, don’t remember seeing since ‘Robot Jox’) and it revs up and kicks in at the most perfect of times. Â  If you are anywhere near an IMAX, this would be the ideal way to see this film for the sound effects alone.

This isn’t to say ‘Star Trek’ is the picture perfect film that goes without issues. Â  There are issues here, particularly with the convenience factor. Â  There are a number of times where elements occur just for the sheer sake of driving the plot, and, during such moments, you can practically choke on the deus ex machina.

An issue that I have always had with ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Star Wars’ alike is how small the universe appears to be despite being made up of hundreds of planets each home to billions of beings. Â  In all this vastness, it still amazes me that two characters having connections to the same story can just bump into one another. Â  A certain Disney theme park song just popped in my head, and I hate it.

Another issue with ‘Star Trek’ is the finale that doesn’t seem quite as grandiose as you would expect given how the film opens. Â  Much of this is in how Bana’s Nero is fleshed out. Â  We understand his pain, and we know full well why he is seeking the revenge that he is seeking. Â  However, there seems to be something missing, and much of this can be found in the way Nero never has a dual side. Â  He is hatred and scowling through and through, and, in the end, that ends up hurting the character.

Despite these minor setbacks, ‘Star Trek’ is an absolute thrill-ride of a motion picture, the kind of big-budget yet story-driven spectacle that needs to be seen more than once. Â  With this new introduction to these characters, Abrams has officially revitalized a franchise that had grown hokey and stale in its later entries. Â  This is ‘Star Trek’ at its coolest, at its best-written, and, certainly, at its biggest. Â  It’s the kind of Summer blockbuster that you should definitely run to see.

Kirk out.

Overall: 4.5 stars out of 5