STAR TREK
Reviewed by Sam Hatch
Star Trek is dead. Long live Star Trek.
Joining the ranks of the numerous waning and wheezing pop culture franchises that have found new life through the magic of "rebooting" (see Christopher Nolan's Batman films and the Daniel Craig Bond outings), Star Trek is once again a vital, vibrant entertainment delivery device. Wisely eschewing the input of those who drove the bloated film and television series into the ground at warp speed, fanboy favorite J.J. Abrams (TV's Lost and Alias, the wildly underrated M-I:III) approached the material as an outsider and managed to craft a film that most communicator-wielding acolytes will proudly proclaim as a return to form.
Much like those thrilling 007 and Bruce Wayne romps, the success of this effort is largely driven by the seemingly illogical paradox that in order to make something fresh again, you must fully embrace and reexamine its roots. Abrams and team (particularly his chosen screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman) ably plunder and expand upon the lore leading up to the original Star Trek television series which aired back in the sixties.
Here Kirk and Spock are not yet the fully bonded chums ready to die for one another regardless of race or personal outlook on love and logic. Whereas many feel that origin stories are a surefire recipe for deadly dull stretches of compulsive watch-glancing, this film bucks the odds by delivering a menagerie of character-rich introductions and a wealth of smile-generating levity that will no doubt induce fits of giddiness in both Trekkies (or, to be politically correct, Trekkers) and Tribble-ignorant masses alike.
This film is one well-balanced ride - rife with emotional connections yet maintaining a jubilant sense of lighthearted fun and adventure. The requisite bumpy-headed villain (rogue future Romulan Nero, imbued with a playful élan by actor Eric Bana) isn't quite a scene stealing Khan figure, yet his diabolical ruse (involving the destruction of planets in a more task-intensive nuts and bolts variation on the threat from the Star Wars films' Death Star) generates genuine tension. Thankfully, young Starfleet cadet James Tiberius Kirk (a very good Chris Pine, thankfully avoiding direct Shatner impersonations) does not believe in no-win scenarios.
One such examination of Kirk's headstrong outlook is during the fabled Kobayashi Maru test, an unbeatable flight simulation tutorial much referenced in the second (and still best) Trek theatrical feature. The brash, wannabe captain's disdain for intended lessons of fear and despair rankle the test's creator, a bright young Vulcan cadet named Spock. This academic butting of heads sets off a volatile rivalry that percolates strongly throughout the remainder of the feature.
The actions of Kirk in particular vary from some accepted histories in Trek canon, but this is largely explained by the time-traveling proclivities of the nefarious Nero and his band of surly, tattoo-noggined Romulans. An early encounter between these violent, vendetta hungry rebels and the U.S.S. Kelvin - home to Kirk's overly brave papa George - induces a splintered timeline that sees young J.T. developing a lust for wild, thrill-seeking behavior far ahead of schedule.
Fast and furious vintage car races across the dustbowls of Iowa (to the tune of The Beastie Boys' golden oldie Sabotage) quickly evolve into a penchant for shagging green women and brawling with young Starfleet hopefuls. The only person to find promise beneath Kirk's bruised, brooding visage is the one and only Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) of the USS Enterprise. This much needed father figure urges our hero to embrace his inner Will Hunting and doff his love for fisticuffs and buffoonery in favor of exploiting his seemingly inhuman capacity for knowledge retention and problem solving.
Humanity is also a problem for young Spock (Jacob Kogan, and later the sublime Zachary Quinto), the mudblood son of a Vulcan bigwig (Ben Cross) and his unlikely human companion (Winona Ryder). The script digs into Spock's complex psyche with a hitherto unseen fervor, and indeed the potential fates and choices of this easily cardboarded character become the driving force of the film's heart and soul. Spock may be a logic-seeking "green-blooded hobgoblin", yet his determination to explore a verboten human side yields rich storytelling soil, echoing Christ's struggle with humanity and divinity.
Not to say that Kirk and Spock dominate the proceedings - the rest of the original show's crew are replicated with aplomb, from Karl Urban's pitch-perfect take on Doctor McCoy to Zoe Saldana's amped up version of communications officer Uhura. Smaller roles go to helmsman Hikaru Sulu (John Cho of the Harold and Kumar series) and navigator Pavel Chekov (a slightly over the top Anton Yelchin).
There have been complaints of Yelchin's outrageous Russian accent and the potentially racist laughs elicited by his tendency to transpose w's in place of v's, but that same lowbrow comedy was also gratuitously exploited in previous Trek entries - most notably in the fourth film (you know, the one with the whales and the nuclear wessels). Simon Pegg's playful take on ship's engineer Montgomery Scott doesn't arrive until around halfway through the feature, but as expected he does deliver numerous stings of snarky wit with ease.
As good (and in some cases, outright uncanny) as these performances are, they are marvelously equaled by the film's stellar special effects. Space battles, creepy-crawly ice planet monsters, futuristic vistas and balls-out assaults on dangling, planet-toasting tools of destruction are all delivered with a heightened sense of creativity and realism. Flush with sweeping camera movements and dazzling lens flare effects, the computer-generated imagery here defies the summer blockbuster convention of delivering piles of gray, uninspiring pixellated bombast.
Star Trek's capacity for visual grace is perhaps at its zenith during a gorgeous reveal of the starship Enterprise emerging from a ruddy particle cloud with a looming planet Saturn at its back. Other interesting design elements include the decision to render the ship's bridge as an uber-white take on a submarine interior, subsequently bouncing light around so much that every frame is bristling with eye-grabbing lens artifacts. Bonus points go to the cool, hyper-squiggly update of the transporter field effects.
The sonic design is also no slouch, for one particular mind-meld montage explaining the activities of a much older Spock (yes, Leonard Nimoy appears in a well-deserved role that is no token cameo) yields an aggressively mixed surround experience that relies on every speaker in the house to convey its narrative information. The filmmakers also earn credit for implementing variations on a number of classic Trek sound effects. So while this highly polished, ultra-modern cinematic vehicle comes across as potent and new, it does so whilst simultaneously recalling the aural feel of its decades-old source material.
If any one element of the film doesn't work on full thrusters, it would have to be Michael Giacchino's score. While fully serviceable in all regards, it avoids revisiting the old Trek themes (save for the end credits) and often reminds the listener that it's never quite in the same company as that of Jerry Goldsmith or James Horner. Still, this is a mere quibble that in no way derails the unbridled entertainment capability of the movie as a whole.
Star Trek is the perfect summer film through and through, delivering balanced amounts of levity and depth. It's still a thinking man's sci-fi flick, but never falls into the talky trappings of the series' numerous later incarnations. Abrams has struck movie gold by simply revisiting the elements that made the original Trek such a hoot. The "Wagon Train to the stars" is back on track, and is again infused with a bountiful energy that should see it safely through several more voyages. Both die-hard fans and space-shy newbies will no doubt find themselves beaming back to theaters for repeat viewings all summer long. Consider "the needs of the many" hereby fulfilled.