Let’s get this out of the way up front: I’m not a Trekkie. I say this not to try and make myself sound cool, or distance myself from this subset of geek culture, but I say this so that you’ll go easy on me. I’ve never watched the shows, I’ve only see a few of the movies, and my knowledge of Star Trek does not extend beyond Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Picard, and the guy from Reading Rainbow. I likely missed half of the fan-service in this movie, and will probably embarrass myself with at least one or two of the comments I make during this review. Consider this the review for those that are uninitiated to the cult of Star Trek, comments below are not necessarily applicable to those who worship at the altar of the Enterprise.
From a plot perspective, this movie starts out at the beginning of it all, with the birth of Kirk. Things are a bit slow to get going, but the movie does hit its pace mid-way through. I think part of the reason the opening felt slow is that it kept dancing around things. We already know that Kirk is going to join Starfleet, we can skip the back-and-forth will he/won’t he. I’m going to sound like a broken record here, but again, this suffers from what I will call “prequel-itis.” Kirk is not going to die, you know this. At the end of the movie, we’ll end up with the crew as we know it, and things can move forward. I know that practically zero summer action movies actually kill off the main characters, but it does still take away part of the tension. Knowing the fates of these characters, and knowing the locations they will find themselves at the end of the film does rob the ending of some of its punch. This is less a gripe about the movie itself, and more my own personal stance towards the recent influx of prequels, reboots, etc. I’ve said it before, but when you already know the ending of the movie, it becomes much more about the journey than the ending itself. The good news for Star Trek, is that the journey was actually good.
The casting in this movie was extremely well done. I loved Chris Pine as Kirk. He perfectly pulled off that sort of rogue, confident, upstart who walks the tightrope between being awesome and being an overly cocky douchebag. He also avoids the pitfall of trying to do a Shatner impression. Wouldn’t have worked, smartly avoided. The other cast members, in particular Simon Pegg as Scotty, John Cho as Sulu, and Karl Urban as Bones, all do a great job with what they’re given. Sadly the each end up with fairly little screen time. This movie is clearly about Kirk and Spock. Speaking of, I wasn’t particularly crazy about Quinto’s Spock, but the more I think about it and talk to others about the movie, I think it’s just that I find the character of Spock as pretty lame. When you have a character that can’t display emotion, it makes it difficult for me to appreciate that character, as I typically lean towards “this guy can’t act for shit.” I’m willing to give Quinto the benefit of the doubt here though, as everyone else is so well-done that I can’t imagine that this is anything less than exactly what Abrams was shooting for.
Speaking of Abrams, he does a great job here. This movie really feels unique, but at the same time, faithful. It’s very much a Star Trek movie, but it also loudly echos Abrams and his frequent collaborators (writers Kurtzman and Orci, and producer Lindelhof). This is almost exactly what you’d expect to get when you cross the Abrams-verse with Star Trek. There’s that element of off-kilter science fiction that tries its best to be based in fact, and he even throws in a pretty obvious Alias reference for those who can spot it (Rambaldi device anyone?). As a big fan of his, this sat with me quite nicely, and I’m more than comfortable with him at the helm for the sequel(s). That being said, I know the joke has been made, but seriously, cool it with the lens flares. I get it, it’s the future, it’s bright, it’s shiny. Message received.
Overall, I found the movie enjoyable, if a little slow. Unfortunately, the movie seems to end exactly where you’d expect the plot to really get started. I suppose that’s kind of the point of a prequel though. I will say that watching the ending of this movie got me really excited for what’s to come in the sequel, and I suppose that’s the perfect praise for a movie like this: I’m excited to see what they come up with next. It still leaves me slightly unsatisfied with the plot as a whole though. Maybe I’m just not the prequel type, or maybe I’m not enough of a Trek fan to care, but I really didn’t need to see how each of these characters met or how they didn’t get along at first, but now they do. I would have been content starting the movie right from that point. Yes, you lose a bit of character development, but that’s easy enough to wrangle in once we’re moving. I guess this isn’t particularly Star Trek’s fault. I think I’m just personally fed up with the prequel/reboot genre. We didn’t used to need entire movies for this. What has caused this culture shift? Why can’t we accept that these four people are a crime fighting team? Why do we always need to show you how they met, why they became a team, how their first mission didn’t go so well until they learned to get along, etc. I don’t know what to blame. Was it the success of Batman Begins? Before that? I loved Batman Begins, I don’t mean to take anything away from it, but if that movie is the reason why we have to reboot every single franchise on Earth and give it a grittier, darker origin story, I’m afraid I’m not going to look back on that movie’s cultural impact fondly. Don’t blame Trek for these transgressions, it’s merely a product of the environment movies find themselves in. But suffice to say that where Dark Knight exceed upon Batman Begins, I look for Trek 2 to exceed upon this one.
Even though I’ve clearly got some sand in my underpants surrounding reboots, I’d still buy this movie 4 beers out of any six-pack. I’d probably even pony up for a two extra shots. One shot for the potential of our next drinking excursion, and another for the pitch-perfect joke about “red shirts” - a comedy goldmine even for those with the barest of Trek knowledge.
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