J.J. Abrams' Trek Remake - Reviewed by Jean Graham
Better than I thought it would be.
OK, so that's damning with faint praise. As a first generation Trek fan, I fully expected to hate this movie for royally screwing up the canon. We all know this altered time line stuff is an age-old comic book ploy used to absolve a new generation of writers for not bothering to learn what's gone before, all the while striving to hook new teenage and twenty-something fans who won't give a damn anyway because they've never seen the 1966 series.
So, I thought I'd loathe Abrams' Star Trek - but I didn't... quite. Neither can I say, though, that it ranks high on my list of best Trek films. Of the 11 movies, I'd put this one... hm... maybe 8th - just above Star Trek: The Motionless Picture, ST: Nemesis, and the execrable ST V: The Final Frontier.
The film's greatest strength is a cast of young actors who tackle their iconic roles with remarkable skill, considering the obstacles they have to overcome. Karl Urban's McCoy takes top honors here. He's the essence of crotchety, lovable "Bones" from word one. Zachary Quinto struggles a bit more in his effort to capture the conflicted young Spock, but he prevails. Have to say, though, that I never bought Spock having a romance with Uhura for a minute. Stupid idea, and it never would have happened. Not in any time line, no way, no how. Huh-uh. Chris Pine as Kirk is appropriately arrogant, brash and over-testosteroned, but never quite reaches the original's sheer, unmitigated bluster. Maybe you just can't out-Shat "The Shat." Anton Yelchin's Chekov and Simon Pegg's Scotty both have too little screen time, but do well with what they have, replete with more authentic-sounding accents than their predecessors managed. John Cho's Sulu also has too little to do, but at least got in a spiffy fencing scene and a comic "Whoops, wrong button" moment. He makes the young Sulu believable. The only female crew member (Chapel and Rand apparently didn't make the cut) is Uhura, and just as in days of yore, she has the least to do. She tries hard, but she's barely there.
They all try hard. Unfortunately, they're fighting a losing battle against the movie's requisite first-string star: those flash-bang, X-Box-style CGI effects that adolescent audiences now expect to dominate every film, at the expense of such old-fashioned, now-dispensable elements as plot or characterization.
The plot here is paper thin and entirely rehashed from previous Trek movies, especially Nemesis, whose villain it retreads, badly. Abrams does pull off the altered time line bit, though, handing us a grimmer, less shiny-bright Star Trek bearing little resemblance to Gene Roddenberry's original vision. More realistic, yes. Necessarily better? Nope.
My two biggest quibbles with this movie are purely cosmetic. Why, oh why, does every new Trek movie and spin-off show have to monkey with the Enterprise's design, which was just fine to begin with? This Enterprise looks pretty good - until you get to those gosh-awful, fat, blobby nacelles they've stuck in place of the long, graceful ones that belong there. Ugh. And J.J., please tell me you were on crack when you approved that monstrosity of a bridge set that looks like a cheap chrome-and-Plexiglas 70s disco. It's hideous. Would it have been so difficult to build something with the simple, functional lines of Matt Jefferies' original? Come to think of it, not one of the interior Enterprise sets bears any resemblance to the ship we've known and loved for 43 years - and they should have. (Hell, I won't even mention that ridiculous beer brewery purporting to be the engine room. Oh. I just did? Never mind.)
Overall, Abrams' reboot is worth a look, and will probably succeed in pulling in throngs of new baby fans with no knowledge of the series it "re-imagines." The rest of us will bite our tongues and endure (OK, sometimes enjoy) the ride, though what I, for one, will miss most is that "cerebral" quality NBC once complained about. That, like plot and characterization, was long ago sacrificed on the altar of the CGI gods, 'cause we've just gotta sell those video game tie-ins to the 30-second-attention-span generation. Sigh.
I liked Star Trek: The Reboot more than I thought I would. But *my* Trek it definitely isn't. From me, it gets 2 ½ stars out of 5.
-JG
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