Star Trek (12A)
- Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Bruce Greenwood, John Cho, Leonard Nimoy, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelc
- Director: JJ Abrams
- Duration: 126 mins
- Year: 2009
Big budget re-imagining of the science fiction franchise, exploring the formative years of the popular characters. James T Kirk enrols at Starfleet Academy. Impetuous, flirtatious and rather too partial of drink, he soon clashes with Captain Christopher Pike, who has the unenviable task of polishing the raw recruits into gallant crew members. In turn, Kirk forges alliances with Spock, Uhura, Chekhov, Scotty and Bones as they lead the heavily armed USS Enterprise into battle against Romulan despot Nero.
Reviews
Alison Rowat's Review
Never mind space being the final frontier, for aeons Hollywood has struggled to make a Star Trek picture that didn’t have audiences wanting to hurl themselves into the nearest black hole after viewing.
Well, lower those critical shields, because director JJ Abrams has managed it. This slick, quick-witted, lovingly fashioned wedge of entertainment is Star Trek, Jim - but much better than you remember it.
Abrams has rejuvenated Gene Roddenberry’s Sixties creation by the simple means of taking the characters of the USS Enterprise back to their youthful roots. Special effects aside, what we have here is that old familiar, a high school movie, albeit one that’s set in space.
With its mix of wild dudes and cerebral types, boys in search of father figures, cool clothes, fast cars, and even faster space ships, this is Grease without the songs, Beverly Hills 90210 with a rocket-boosted IQ.
Add to this a script that nods affectionately to Trekkies but is not in thrall to them, and a director who gets as big a blast out of exploring a character as blowing stuff to smithereens, and the result is out-and-out popcorny, pop cultural fun.
At the core of the picture is the relationship between one James Tiberius Kirk, a farm boy from Iowa, and a young Vulcan whose name rhymes with tick-tock.
This being an origins story, before we can meet Kirk and Spock there’s a backstory to the backstory to chew through.
In an opening shot that echoes Star Wars (and almost every other space opera since), a ship is making its stately progress through the intergalactic soup when it is attacked by the villainous Nero (Eric Bana).
An evacuation is launched, with consequences that will echo down the years, or at least until the adult Kirk and Spock turn up.
First sight of this pair is as boys. Young Kirk has a need for speed that gets him into trouble with hover-bike riding cops. Spock junior, meanwhile, is having none too happy a time at school due to being only half-Vulcan (mother was one of us backward Earth types). “I presume you’ve prepared some new insults for me today,” he intones as the bullies turn up.
It’s the first of many amusing moments in the film, and a welcome sign that the script by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Mission: Impossible III) has got the tone just right. While being playful with the iconic characters and all their ways, the picture never lampoons them.
Fast forward another few years and a new batch of Starfleet space cadets is getting ready for their first mission, among them Kirk (now played by Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto, previously best known as Sylar in TV’s Heroes).
Although the rogue they are chasing will turn out to be a familiar one, the youngsters know nothing of what lies ahead.
The casting of Kirk and Spock is spot on and, in Quinto’s case, close to spooky.
Pine’s Kirk is a squat, muscly, cock of the walk type with an ego the size of Saturn. Quinto is tall, rangy, with a haircut that would verge on cruelty if he was ten years younger.
Then, of course, there are those famous ears. “Who was that pointy eared b******,” says Kirk after an encounter with Spock. “I don’t know,” says Kirk’s new friend Bones, “but I like him.” Ditto.
Bones, Chekov, Uhura, Sulu - all are present and correct, as are the many sayings the show acquired like barnacles down the years. If you’re minded to play, a great game of Star Trek word bingo can be had.
Abrams - creator of TV’s Lost, director of Mission: Impossible III and producer of rampaging monsterfest Cloverfield - doesn’t avoid falling into some dull holes over the two hour running time, but he knows how to get out of them. His ultimate rabbit out of the hat, or Vulcan out of the ether, is the return of Leonard Nimoy as the older version of Spock.
Working out how the older Spock fitted into the grand scheme of a convoluted story defeated my powers of logic, but who cares? It’s Spock, and he’s back.
A close rival to Nimoy for scene stealing is Simon Pegg as Scotty, chief engineer of the USS Enterprise. Playing a Scot, the Gloucester-born lad had to pass one of the toughest accent tests going, one that famously defeated his predecessor, the Canadian actor James Doohan. Verdict? Pegg passes with flying Saltire colours, even managing to squeeze in a few local phrases here and there. Drawing the comedy accent short straw instead is Anton Yelchin as the Russkie Chekov. He just about gets away with it.
Although cinema needs another franchise right now like a black hole in the head, it’s a measure of the goodwill this Star Trek inspires that the blatant setting up of a sequel invites excitement rather than groans. Beam us there pronto, Scotty.