Review: Star Trek

First Contact

Even though I know Wolverine came out last week, I still have to say that the proceeding week's follow up almost seems like an eerily familiar premise. Once again, we are the witness to a once great motion picture series that began to lose credibility over the years, especially with its last film, and has attempted to reinvent itself by providing an origin story for its best leading characters. Unfortunately, Wolverine just didn't have enough to sustain a believable story, but with no competition, the film had an impressive debut. This week, the reinvention happens to a franchise that has a lot more fans and ends up being many times better.

After four films in the Star Trek franchise departed from the original crew and started to focus on the next generation with Patrick Stewart as commander, this new film takes the Batman Begins route and goes back into the past to discover how all the original crew members of the Starship Enterprise managed to gain their iconic roles. Here, the crew of the Enterprise face a nearly unrecognizable Eric Bana as Nero, a renegade, time traveling Romulan who is on a revenge crusade destroying planets as he goes along.

Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, who now play the respective roles of Kirk and Spock, are very convincing and do the parts justice. Pine, a relative newcomer, gratefully does not try to do a Shatner impersonation and instead makes the character his own. He manages to breath fresh air in a character that could have been destroyed by some antics of its original owner, but he definitely makes Kirk credible again. Likewise, Quinto not only resembles the original Spock (and yes, Leonard Nimoy appears in this film), but he's also able to give him a sensitivity that was absent from the early years that is pleasurable in this new era. Both Quinto and Pine do fantastic and believable work in this movie, whether they share the screen or not.

Other areas of the cast also shine, in particular Zoë Saldana as Uhura. This how the character should be played today, and Saldana makes her one to care about because of her sensitivity, admire because of her strengths, and fear because of her intimidation. There are also nice additions from Karl Urban, doing well as the surly surgeon "Bones" McCoy, Simon Pegg as the funny and jittery engineer Scotty, Bruce Greenwood as the now infamous Captain Pike (consult your nearest Trekkie/Trekker for more information) and even smaller roles from Winona Ryder as Spock's human mother, Nimoy himself playing his old character once again, and Tyler Perry (yes, that Tyler Perry).

Some other characters are only so-so, such as John Cho's Sulu, who isn't reserved enough to feel credible nor exciting enough to feel intriguing. Bana's villain also doesn't preserve too much menace in his scenes, but I would say he mostly does a good job with the limited material he is provided, and the same thing would be said about his henchman played by Capote's Clifton Collins, Jr. However, the one that truly felt like a wrong note is Anton Yelchin's Chekov. I was annoyed with the heavy and cartoonish Russian accent when Walter Koenig did it for so many years and it was just as annoying today. Hopefully the sequel will allow Yelchin to ease up on that distractingly bad voice.

Thankfully, J.J. Abrams did not set out to make a Star Trek movie that was completely faithful to the world that Gene Roddenberry created more than forty years ago. If one has a deep fondness for the original show or previous films, then some may be upset with the directions the plot and characters take. However, Abrams knows that an audience can sometimes just be stimulated by the action, and there are impressive action sequences in the film. Even still, Abrams also knows how to make the characters themselves drive the action forward, and the heavy suspenseful drama can be just as present in moments between characters rather than between dueling starships.

I would also give credit to writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (the men who penned Transformers and co-created "Fringe" with Abrams) for devoting some much beloved and needed time to cement a relationship with these characters so we can care about their future plights. Unfortunately, it also meant that when it came time to look at the actual meat of the story, the conflict, it felt like a lazy effort. Revenge used as a motivation for a villain is one overdone, and it causes the film to lose a bit in as the third act comes to a close. Because Nero doesn't seem to have an ambitious plan, his threat never feels greatly realized and some of the action falls flat. The eventual sequel probably won't have this issue, but this film was certainly lacking there.

In the end, though, this becomes a great sci-fi/action epic that is enjoyable for both hard core fans and summer movie audiences. Thanks to an incredibly talented cast and insightful direction from Abrams (who includes a few winks here and there to the original series), the film surpasses it's story problems. If anyone else was let down tremendously by last week's big release, try to forget it. This is where the summer really begins. ***1/2 / ****; GRADE: B+