Film Review: Star Trek (Spoilers)

JJ Abrams achieves the impossible – a reboot which isn’t strictly a reboot. It’s a prequel without exactly being a prequel and it’s pretty bloody amazing. Think you know Star Trek? Think again!

Romulan Nero (Eric Bana) emerges from a singularity and destroys the USS Reliant, but not before acting Captain George Kirk saves his wife and unborn son, at the cost of his own life. His son’s name is James Tiberius, and his father isn’t supposed to die. And minutes after Kirk senior dies, why is the Spock we know emerging as well? It’s a fantastic time travel saga which reboots the Star Trek universe into a new, ‘ultimatized’ timeline where anything’s possible. Young Spock (Zachary Quinto, effortlessly channelling a young Nimoy) hooking up with Uhura (Zoë Saldana)? Sure. The destruction of Vulcan? Sure. It’s the people we know but with all the continuity stripped back out and new rules applied, and it’s the freshest thing I’ve seen on the screen in some time. What makes it work aside from a perfectly tuned script is powerhouse performances from the entire cast, all channelling their older counterparts, whilst giving very new takes (and offering new insights) as well on characters we think we know. And it’s perfectly cast, particularly Kirk and Spock – the chemistry Pine and Quinto have is electric, and Pine is a revelation. Not only is he unexpectedly hot, but he lights up the screen every moment he’s on. He is truly a Christopher Reeve-level find, knowing just when to ape Shatner, whilst knowing just how he wants his distinctive take on Kirk to be. For me he makes the movie.

But the script really is that good too. From its acknowledgment of Kirk’s near pathological desire to cheat death through to maintaining McCoy’s ascerbic wit and place in the Kirk/Spock/McCoy troika, whilst keeping an awareness of Gene Roddenberry’s utopianist vision, it hits all the right buttons and invents new ones too. Sure there’s a product placement moment which really is cringeworthy, but it’s just one and doesn’t detract from the main storyline, which succeeds in making Kirk and Spock interesting once more, but is clearly also designed to draw an entirely new audience in. Never understood why Kirk was the greatest starship captain? Never cared? You do now – Pine’s hellraising Kirk earns not just his friends’ respect, but ours too, aided and abetted by the unlikeliest sources… And have I mentioned the CGI? No? The frankly huge CGI budget again pays homage to classic Trek design whilst refreshing the look, but it also delivers standout moments like the Enterprise’s emergence from Saturn’s rings, whilst sneaking back to Earth to rescue it from Nero.

Granted there is the odd clumsy patch – the storytelling in the runup to our introduction to adult Kirk and Spock is a little ropey at times, Quinto on occasion comes across a little too Sylar, and baddy Nero’s motivations aren’t as clear as they could be, but the deficiencies are more than made up for by an abundance of charm and sheer pace (director Abrams has also clearly learned from Jonathan Frakes in ‘First Contact’). It’s cool, respectful, occasionally very funny indeed and tells a story the likes of which you haven’t seen in Star Trek before. Leonard Nimoy’s inclusion is a suitably respectful sign off and handover to a true next generation, who have complete freedom to take this in any direction they please. It worked for Bale’s Batman, for Craig’s Bond, and now for the Enterprise crew too. I’m looking forward to what follows, and hoping for more mostly-nude Pine moments. I saw this at London’s IMAX cinema – can you imagine?! 😉 9/10