5th June, 2009
DAVID ADAMS
Star Trek (M)
In a word: Ground-breaking
"JJ Abrams' take is a playful film and steers away from the, at times, self-important seriousness of some of the previous Star Trek movies. There’s a grittiness here too which is not evident in previous films (just as we saw with the grittier versions of Batman and James Bond films released in recent years)."
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It’s Star Trek, but not as we know it.
Star Trek, the new movie, is actually a prequel which starts before Captain James T. Kirk ever set foot aboard the USS Enterprise to boldly go where no-one has gone before.
We meet Kirk as he’s born during a dramatic escape from a starship which finds itself under attack from a mystery ship emerging from a black hole. The movie then fast forwards to show Kirk as a joy-riding wild boy and then to Kirk (played by Chris Pine), as a young man - something of a James Dean-style “rebel without a cause”.
But this is the story of a friendship and so, just as we’re shown Kirk’s roots, the film quickly turns to the origins of the Spock (played by Zachary Quinto) - a boy born of a human mother and a Vulcan father - and his troubled upbringing among the Vulcans where he is ever the outsider.
It’s in a bar that Kirk encounters an old comrade of his father’s, Captain Christopher Pike (played by Bruce Greenwood), and it’s there that he’s challenged to join up with Star Fleet which - surprise, surprise - he does. Kirk meets up with Spock during training - Spock has opted, much to the dismay of his Vulcan tutors, to work in Star Fleet instead of the Science Academy and now works as one of the trainers at Star Fleet.
The two immediately take a dislike to each other but soon find themselves working together against Nero (played by Eric Bana), a renegade Romulan who is threatening the very existence of earth itself.
JJ Abrams' take is a playful film and steers away from the, at times, self-important seriousness of some of the previous Star Trek movies. There’s a grittiness here too which is not evident in previous films (just as we saw with the grittier versions of Batman and James Bond films released in recent years).
Pine does a fair job of channelling Kirk and Quinto is well-suited to the role of Spock. They’re strongly supported by Karl Urban (who does a great job as ‘Bones' McCoy), Simon Pegg (who plays a slightly weird engineer Scotty), and, of course, Leonard Nimoy (who reprises his role as the older Spock - to explain how would give too much away).
The references abound for Star Trek fans and the visuals are simply amazing. But the story is self-contained enough that a first-timer will enjoy it. The only question is whether a sequel to the prequel will be forthcoming (the plot certainly makes it a possibility!).
This is Star Trek, but we can see why they didn’t call it Star Trek XI.
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