August Movie Review “ Star Trek”
I have never been confused for a Trekkie. It’s not that I don’t like Star Trek. The opposite is true. I have on occasion really enjoyed an episode, outtake, even one of the movies. I am familiar with the basics of the show and the central characters. I am anxiously awaiting the day when I can call “Beam me up Scotty!” With that said I have just never fallen in love with Star Trek.
On Friday I received “Star Trek” in the mail from Netflix. The family all sat down and watched it together. I had heard good things about the movie from friends. I had no idea! The film starts with a bang, and just gets better. I was expecting to see the next installment in a sting of movies who already had advanced character development and complex back-stories that the Trekkie audience would understand and the average Joe (or Chris in my case) just hasn’t invested the necessary time and effort necessary to understand the real story. Happily I could not have been more wrong.
The movie kicks off by developing a set of characters and a story that is compelling from the first scene. Within the first 15 minutes there is great technology, amazing battle sequences, human drama, ultimate heroism, and even a 1967 Corvette.
The story moves with the life of James Tiberius Kirk. We learn about the major motivating factors of his childhood, his acceptance into Star Command, and his relationship to Spock. I loved that I got to watch Spock grow up and learn about some of his early experience and family dynamics. There is a brilliant mix of action sequences, CGI, character development, and dialog. I was particularly impressed as we met additional characters like Sulu, Scotty, the Doctor, etc.
The Romulon bad guys were really really bad. I found myself disliking them from the first scene, and strangely as the movie progressed I understood the reasoning behind their misguided efforts. When they blow up Vulcan, (actually I think implode is more technically correct) I was ready to be done with them.
I don’t want to give too much away here but when James Kirk meets Mr. Spock from the future (played by Leonard Nemoy, of course) and he utters the phrase “I have been and always will be, your friend!” I realized that this film was exactly what I had expected it to be. It was the next episode in a string of Star Trek films. The key was, (and I think this is a brilliant move) that time travel was used to position the audience at the beginning of the Star Trek story. This is the ideal place for both long time trek fans and for guys like me who know very little comparatively of the Star Trek story. The really cool thing for me was that the story continues and allows both the future films and series to stand, and the film, with me as its audience to come to a dramatic, and entertaining conclusion.
I have been a J.J. Abrams fan since the introduction of “Fringe” on Fox. He exceeds my expectations here with “Star Trek”
If you haven’t seen it. go see it! If you are not a Trekkie then this is a movie you must see.
This is the Best Sci-Fi /Action Flick of the Summer.
Comments
Anonymous
August 30, 2010
This is by FAR the worst Star Trek movie ever conceived. It is an abomination. It is NOT Star Trek and JJ Abrams should crawl away never to be seen from again. Terrible!Anonymous
August 30, 2010
This is by FAR the worst Star Trek movie ever conceived. It is an abomination. It is NOT Star Trek and JJ Abrams should crawl away never to be seen from again. Terrible!