Belated Review: Star Trek

This will be more of a mini-review for two reasons: First, the movie's been out for a week and every body's already posted their reviews; Second, I have a million and four things to do for the JTMF benefit and just don't have the time I'd normally spend on a movie review.

In director J.J. Abrams reboot of Gene Roddenberry's classic Sci-Fi epic, everything we think we know about James T. Kirk; Spock; McCoy; Scotty; Chekov; Ohura and Sulu is wrong. Not because Abrams doesn't respect his source material, but rather because he plays time-travel games with the plot and basically erases the past with the introduction of a revenge-bent, time-travelling villain. These are the same sort of games Abrams plays on his television shows "Lost" and "Fringe" (both brilliant and much fun).

Chris Pine is fine as James Tiberious Kirk, the impetuous Star Fleet Cadet who cheats on the infamous Kobiashi Maru test, weasels his way (via his buddy Dr. McCoy) onto the Enterprise and eventually becomes its Captain. Zachary Quinto ("Heroes") is also well-cast as Spock, the ship's half-Human/half-Vulcan First Officer. Rounding out the cast are John Cho (Harold and Kumar) as Sulu; Anton Yelchin (Alpha Dog) as Chekov; Zoe Saldana (Vantage Point) as Ohura; Simon Pegg (Sean of the Dead) as Scotty and Karl Urban (The Bourne Supremacy) as McCoy. Urban is particularly good as the Enterprise's eventual Chief Medical Officer, channel Deforrest Kelly's Bones in an hilariously eerie way. Eric Bana (Hulk) is on hand as the weirdly sexy villain, Nero and Bruce Greenwood (Capote) is terrific as the Enterprise's original Captain, Christopher Pike. Almost unrecognizable, Winona Rider plays Spock's human mother while Ben Cross staunchly assumes the role of Spock's father, Sareck. Several of Abrams' regular players are on hand in bit roles and Leonard Nimoy appears as "Spock Prime," the future Vulcan Ambassador to Romulos.

The SFX are top-notch and include some of the finest space battles ever filmed and Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman's screenplay manages to provide some terrific background for the characters we've known for so long. All in all, Star Trek is an exciting and fun ride and I, for one, can't wait to see where Abrams and company take the franchise. ***** (Five out of Five Stars).

More, anon.
Prospero