DIRECTOR: J.J. Abrams
CAST:
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana,
Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin,
John Cho, Ben Cross, Winona Ryder, Leonard Nimoy
REVIEW:
Director J.J. Abrams (director of Cloverfield and creator of the Lost television series) and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (writers of 2007’s Transformers) have attempted to do much the same for Star Trek what Christopher Nolan did for Batman; mix things up and inject freshness in a way that the new film is not tied down to those that came before. While the simply-titled Star Trek is not quite as triumphant a success as The Dark Knight
, in my opinion, Abrams and cast and crew have mostly succeeded at what they set out to do. Trekkies with open minds may find much to appreciate here, but be forewarned: this ain’t your Daddy’s Star Trek.
Part of the goal here, as with any reboot bid at saving a floundering film franchise, is to draw in a wider audience, reaching beyond the built-in Trekkie base for the mainstream crowds, and Abrams very deliberately starts things off with a blast, with a rousing and poignant prologue showing the devastating attack on Federation ships by a massive warship that seems to emerge from an intergalactic lightning storm and is commanded by a rogue Romulan called Nero (Eric Bana, unrecognizable or nearly so). Not for the first time in Star Trek, the villain comes from the future to change the past, but after his opening volley, Nero is quiet for twenty-five years, during which time we are introduced to two sharply-contrasting men whose paths are destined to cross. James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) is a hot-rodding, skirt-chasing, bar fighting rebel without a cause who is persuaded to join Starfleet after a chance meeting with Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) of the new starship USS Enterprise, who sees that the young man has potential and just needs a direction. Meanwhile, the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock (Zachary Quinto) is trying to find his path between human ways and Vulcan values urging clear, cold logic and tight control over emotions. Three years and a chance confrontation later, Kirk and Spock both end up on the bridge of the Enterprise, joining a crew also including Uhura (Zoe Saldana), who gets hit on by Kirk but has more affection for Spock, Sulu (John Cho), who is trained in fencing, seventeen-year-old “Russian whiz kid” Chekov (Anton Yelchin), whose accent is so thick even the voice-activated computer has trouble understanding him, and Kirk’s first Starfleet friend, grumpy medical officer “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban), who already acts like his own crotchety grandpa. They are joined in time by engineer Scotty (Simon Pegg) and a visitor from the future, the elderly Spock (Leonard Nimoy), who brings information about Nero’s planet-destroying plans.
As part of its bid to attract wider audiences, Star Trek opens with a bang, and consistently puts much emphasis on action, comedy, and special effects, with by far the fastest pace of any Star Trek movie. The familiar time travel plot device is also used in such a way that nothing is set in stone by the previous movies. Nero’s entrance in the past during Kirk and Spock’s adolescence changes both of their personal histories, and history in general. The timeline established by decades of Star Trek films and television series, if not completely wiped out, at least exists in an alternate dimension to this one, where, conceivably, anything goes. This conveniently frees Abrams’ hands and allows him to take his story in different directions, taking license with established Trek history and even with the specifics of Kirk and Spock’s characters, since things happen during their childhoods here that weren’t “supposed” to happen, and subtly alter who they grow up to be. Kirk is more of a delinquent, and Spock's emotions are a little closer to the surface. The explanation that an alternate timeline separate from the original has been created also cleverly gives Abrams a way to dodge alienating the longtime fan base who might be outraged if Abrams pulled a Christopher Nolan and just voided everything that happened previously.
Of course, one of the things many viewers will be doing is mentally judging which young cast members do the best jobs stepping into the shoes of their older alter egos. Chris Pine was upfront in interviews that he would play his own James T. Kirk without doing an outright impression of William Shatner, and he does a solid job of capturing Kirk’s brazen cockiness while tempering it with enough heroism and earnestness to keep his Kirk from coming across as too much of a jerk, without ever either vocally or physically overtly mimicking Shatner (Pine doesn’t attempt to speak like Shatner; no “dramatic pauses”), although there are moments when his appearance, expressions, and mannerisms are subtly reminiscent. Zachary Quinto looks almost uncannily like a young Leonard Nimoy (the resemblance is not dispelled even when they stand face-to-face), but brings out more of Spock’s conflict between his Vulcan and human sides. There is still the cool, analytical, logical aspect, but Quinto’s Spock shows a bit more emotion. Perhaps the biggest surprise in the supporting cast is Karl Urban, who does a delightfully on-target imitation of DeForest Kelley- probably the most overt imitation of anyone- doing plenty of skulking around muttering "damn it Jim!" and constantly reminding everyone "I'm a doctor!". Zoe Saldana gives Uhura a sexy boost and a touch of feistiness (Kirk tries putting the moves on her, but she's not impressed), along with providing one member of the unexpected onboard romance. Besides getting a few laughs out of Chekov’s impenetrable accent, Anton Yelchin doesn’t get much to do, and John Cho gets even less; his Sulu stays the most in the background, apart from one fight scene that shows off Sulu’s sword fighting and hand-to-hand combat skills (incidentally, this is only the first big sci-fi movie of the summer in which Anton Yelchin plays a younger version of an established character; he is a teenage Kyle Reese in Terminator Salvation
. Simon Pegg strikes a slightly "off" note as Scotty; he's energetically amusing, but personally reminds me more of Billy Boyd than James Doohan. As Star Trek villains go, Eric Bana’s Nero is adequate but middle-of-the-road and generic. His motives are the same as numerous other Trek baddies- launching a genocidal attack against the Federation to avenge personal sufferings- and not enough is done with Nero to make him stand out among the many foes the Enterprise has faced over the years. Bruce Greenwood is fine as Captain Pike (a somewhat more noble figure than the shifty types he seems to tend to play), Ben Cross has a couple nice moments as Spock’s father Sarek, and Winona Ryder has little more than a cameo as Spock’s human mother (her age makeup doesn’t quite hide her girlishness). Leonard Nimoy’s part is a little more substantial than the cameo it was promoted as, and not only does Nimoy provide a needed link between the old and the new, he effortlessly slips back into a role he last played eighteen years before without missing a beat (to see Nimoy utter the words “live long and prosper” one last time is the kind of moment that brings tears to Trekkie eyes).
Obviously the special effects are far more advanced, sophisticated, and detailed than anything seen in the Star Trek universe thus far. The ships and space battles are on par with those in the Star Wars prequels. In addition to the ships, we also have Kirk being chased by a huge snow monster that then gets taken out by a much larger monster (which bears a suspicious resemblance to the monster in Abrams’ Cloverfield), and Nero turning a planet into a black hole (making it rather the understatement when Nimoy’s “Old Spock” describes him, as dryly as only Spock can, as “an especially troubled Romulan”).
There is much more that does work, but also some that doesn’t work. The scenes of comic relief, while almost all effectively funny, are too numerous and, especially early on, almost make the movie seem like a comedy. Also a little hard to take is the romance between Spock and Uhura; it’s not so much Uhura’s affection for Spock, but Spock returning it, that doesn’t quite seem “Spock”. Scotty is around entirely for comic relief, and crew members like Chekov and especially Sulu aren’t given much to do. There’s no underlying theme or “message”, unlike many Star Trek movies, and that might be an unfortunate side effect of the more action-oriented approach; the movie whisks along at a fast pace but loses a little depth and character development along the way. In fact, the best-developed character in the movie with ironically the most moments where he generates an emotional reaction is the young Spock, while the best acting scenes are two heated bridge confrontations between he and Kirk. The movie throws in all kinds of nods to the “old” Trek. Bones gets plenty of “damn it Jim” and “I’m a doctor, not a psychiatrist/miracle worker/engineer/etc.” lines. Nimoy and Quinto exchange Vulcan salutes, and Nimoy utters the phrase “live long and prosper”, along with repeating a line from The Wrath of Khan (“I have been and always will be your friend”). Both Nimoy and Quinto utter the line “fascinating”. During the climactic battle, Simon Pegg gets to yell Scotty’s signature line.
Admittedly it's a little odd initially to have other, young actors appearing onscreen and being introduced as "Jim Kirk", "Spock", "Bones McCoy", "Pavel Chekov", etc., and at first the crew seems slapped together through coincidence and emergency, with no time for the kind of bonding formed over years of working together. But especially in the second half of the film, things really seem to start to "click" to where we hear echoes of the past in our young crew, with Nimoy's climactic rendition of the "these are the voyages" narration capping it off with a suitably nostalgic final note. Everything old is new again. J.J. Abrams and his cast and crew have indeed boldly gone where no one has gone before, giving things an updated sensibility without losing the fundamental "Trek" feel, and the cast almost uniformly do worthy jobs of respectfully echoing their predecessors in their chairs without resorting to simple mimicry. The first half is fast-paced action-comedy-drama, and the second half kicks into rousing space action-drama high gear that proves itself worthy of the name "Star Trek".
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