The Final Frontier? Not Just Yet
Star Trek For A Now Generation
2009-05-08

CAST: Chris Fox
              Zachery Quinto
              Zoe Saldana
              Eric Bana
              Karl Urban
              Simon Pegg
              John Cho
              Anton Yelchin
              Bruce Greenwood
              Leonard Nimoy
           
WRITTEN BY: Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman
DIRECTED BY: J.J. Abrams
**1/2  TWO AND A HALF STARS

To paraphrase the quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald that there are no second acts in life, Star Trek proved the exception to rule. Starting off as a cheaply made, only moderately successful sci-fi TV show  on NBC during the mid-60’s, its popularly increased, no doubt because of its cheesy B movie production values intertwined with high falutin’, heavy handled messages about morality, ethics and tolerance, in reruns for decades. All this led Paramount to bet the farm and make a Star Trek film directed by Robert Wise in 1978 which was the beginning of turning Trek into the biggest financial success in the history of the studios resulting in several TV spin offs, a short-run Saturday cartoon and ten movies of various quality from pretty good to wretched and boring.

Despite that fact that the original cast has either aged or died, the studio still believes there’s the program can be rebooted for a new age and audience. But the results are decidedly mixed.

Slick, shiny  and gleaming like a highly polished steel kitchen, this new Star Trek moves, sweeps and glides unlike any other Trek film. The relentlessly moving camera, with constant flares flashing into the lens and hyped up editing, the film has an energy that many of its Trek predecessors lacked. The sometimes ponderous Trek films  have been replaced by a pulsating movement and it’s all the better for it and it’s undeniably entertaining.

Directed by Hollywood wunderkind J.J. Abrams, the son of a TV Hollywood screenwriter raised in Beverly Hills and the creator of Lost and Alias who previously directed Mission Impossible III, has  admitted that he’s was never a Trekkie or fan of the show and in many ways that’s a good thing. Not tied down to stilted rules and  conventions, Abrams is freer to tweak the Trek format while being respectful of Star Trek’s history, its nuances and characterizations. Though one still has to be up on Trek lore to understand the many references and in-jokes in the film, newcomers won’t be completely lost.

Since it’s wouldn’t have been a good idea to have geriatrics in Form-fitting suits chugging around like they did 40 years old, this new Trek instead brings a fresh faced cast , eager for excitement and adventure as they attend space academy school and begin first mission on the USS Enterprise. As with so many Trek movies and episodes, the plot centers around an evil alien race, led by a heavily tattooed Eric Bana, out to destroy the universe for revenge as a young Kirk (Pine) Spock (Quinto) Uhura (Saldana) Sulu (Cho) Bones (Urban) Chekov (Yelchin) and Scotty (Pegg) have their bitter conflicts, form life long friendships and save the day.

Unfortunately things go seriously wrong in the second half of the film when the original Spock, played by Nimoy, makes an appearance bringing up an unexpected and confusing time travel subplot and a muddled, weakly written back story which seriously hurts the film and from which it never completely recovers. So determined are the writers to shoehorn Nimoy into the film to satisfy hard core Trek geeks, that its put the film’s dramatic structure of whack. As a result, Saldana’s Uhura is more upfront forwarded in the first part of the film then suddenly relegated to the background and practically forgotten. The relationship and rivalry between Kirk and Spock becomes more simplistic and the action sequences become more routine and uninspired as even the usually dependable villains become onedimensional.

In fact, their mad scheme to destroy earth and domination of the universe with use of a gigantic drill using deadly black hole inducing matter is so easily overcome one wonders why no one bothered to try it before.

The performances are fine with, not surprisingly, Quinto, looking remarkably like a young Nimo a stand out. Pine very subtly channels William Shatner’s mannerisms without mimicking him,  and Saldana as a very sexy Uhura and Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) gets the biggest laughs as Scotty though unfortunately one has to wait nearly 2/3rds into the film before he makes his appearance.

No doubt Star Trek freaks will love this new revamped edition and, as you are reading this, a follow up is sure to be already in the works.

But despite it’s considerable assets, this newfangled Star Trek could have been even better. One hopes that the next one will live up toexpectations.

Film critic, lecturer and festival consultant Sergio Mims covers all things film from the city that works, Chicago. He is a regular contributor to EbonyJet.com.