Star Trek (2009)</h2
J.J. Abrams (Director)
Quick View: If you like Sci Fi movies I think you’ll enjoy this modern take on Star Trek.
Publisher’s summary: The incredible story of a young crew’s maiden voyage on board the most advanced starship ever created: The USS Enterprise. In the midst of an incredible journey full of optimism, intrigue, comedy and cosmic peril, the new recruits must find a way to stop an evil being whose mission of vengeance threatens all of mankind.
The movie starts out with James T Kirk’s parents in a no win situation, which I thought was very well.
The movie then moves on to introducing the characters, all of which is well done but somehow I felt like “Kirk’s” could have been done better. He’s portrayed as half bad boy and half do gooder, something I didn’t feel like they pulled off 100%. And while some of the cast look very much like their classic counterparts, some really don’t look anywhere close.
There’s also a spat between Kirk and Spock with while well executed was kind of a disappointment as these two star fleet officers were previously envisioned as best friends.
On the bright side, I loved each character’s portrayal of their alter ego’s, including Capt. Pike, Kirk & Spock (aside from the Kirk/Spock tiff.) Dr McCoy, aka Bones, was awesome and had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion. I also thought Uhura was excellently done, and felt the addition of a love interest worked extremely well. Finally, hats off to Chekov, Sulu, and Scotty for very entertaining reprisals.
As far as visual, hat’s off to J.J. Abrams. The new Enterprise’s exterior, the mega space station it’s docked in, and most all the space scenes are incredible. Also, most of the ships interior including the bridge, are exceptionally well done. The new transporter effect and space combat was also excellent. The only area I felt was just sub par was the retro look of some of the interior sections of the enterprise. In these sections pipes were going every which way evoking more of submarine atmosphere than a high tech start ship. Also particularly bad was the Star Fleet base on the frozen planet, looked more like a run down 20th Century factory (ceramic tile and all) than futuristic outpost.
Of the many minor plot issues, the biggest one was the !!!SPOILER ALERT!!! … Super Nova that was threatening the entire Galaxy. With 400 billion suns not single Super Nova could threaten the other 399,999,999,999 stars. !!!End Spoiler Alert!!!
Overall, if you like Sci Fi movies I think you’ll enjoy this modern take on Star Trek. And while Star Trek fans may have mixed feelings, the reboot leaves lots of hope for the inevitable sequel.
NOTE: This review was originally published in the After Hours section of the author’s personal website, shawnmichael.com.
[stsig]
[ques]
[aff]