Star Trek (2009) - J.J. Abrams

Star Trek (2009)
Director: J.J. Abrams
Writers: Alex Kurtzman (Screenplay), Roberto Orci (Screenplay), Gene Roddenberry (Television Series)
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Simon Pegg, Winona Ryder, Karl Urban, John Cho, Zoe Saldana, Bruce Greenwood, Ben Cross, Anton Yelchin, Leonard Nimoy

Like most fans of the Star Trek universe I was quite skeptical before seeing J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009). On top of the fact that I have never been an Abrams fan I just didn't want to see anyone else playing these iconic characters. Up until the minute I sat down in that theater I was very cantankerous about the whole idea of letting Abrams reboot Star Trek. Honestly as much of a fan as I am of Trek I was of the opinion that is was about time for it to just fade away before anyone could mess it up any further. I mean the last few outings had been less than stellar.

Well, after seeing the movie I can pretty much say that I was wrong. I had thought that Abrams was going to completely rape the series and get everything wrong. The truth is, he actually showed a lot of respect for the series. He told a good story and put just enough "geek moments" in to keep any fan happy. Personally I was extremely excited to finally see Kirk take the Kobayashi Maru test and they actually played it out pretty well. But there were plenty of other references to other incarnations of Star Trek in the movie and none of them seemed overly forced.

While the time travel plot device has been completely overused in the Star Trek universe and I wasn't looking forward to it being a major plot device in this film, I must say that it was actually handled very well. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone but the plot actually comes together rather nicely and it does a great job of explaining away any continuity errors that would occur between this new movie and the original series. Explaining these things did take a bit too much exposition in my opinion but it worked pretty well and didn't take me out of the movie at all.

I think the film did a really great job of exploring Spock's half human/half vulcan nature. There were definitely a lot of moments where he was struggling with how to handle the flood of emotions that he was not used to dealing with. His relationship with his father was also done extremely well in my opinion. I also liked how his relationship with Kirk started out as very adversarial and the slowly became a friendship over the course of the film. I was really impressed with all of that because I didn't not expect that level of character development from J.J. Abrams. I will say though, the movie did teach one very important lesson about Spock. Never insult his mother; he will not stand for it and mostly like you won't be standing after you do it either.

For the most part the actors in the film did a pretty good job of embodying the characters they were portraying. This was what was worrying me the most from the beginning. I just didn't think I'd be able to believe anyone else as one of these characters. You know what, though? It worked. Zachary Quinto was spot on as Spock and his scene with Leonard Nimoy was really nice to watch. Karl Urban really was great as McCoy; he really had the speech patterns, mannerisms and personality down pat. Chris Pine was a tiny bit over the top as Kirk but since Shatner was always a bit over the top himself it pretty much worked. I did think Simon Pegg could have toned his performance down a notch though. His Scotty was just a little too far over the top in my opinion.

The only real complaints I have are for small things, though. I think there were a couple things in the movie that didn't really need to be there to advance the plot. I thought the scene with the giant monster chasing Kirk on Delta Vega was a little silly and not necessary. It seemed like they just wanted to throw in another action sequence just for the heck of it. I also didn't much care for the scene where Scotty got stuck in the water pipe. I get that they were going for a bit of humor but that scene, like Scotty himself, was just a bit to over the top.

One last thing though. If there is a sequel I will be in line to see it but please, please, please tone down the lens flares. They don't really add anything at all to the movie. All they do is make it hard to see what is actually going on. So, if we could, let's drop those from the plans for any sequels. That is my only request. Otherwise, keep doing what you are doing.

Rating: 7/10