Star Trek

May 10, 2009

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 127 min Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Star Trek is back, and this time they did not bring along any androids singing Gilbert and Sullivan or not so subtle tree hugging messages. Instead, they brought a couple of star freighters full of whoop-ass.

This version of Star Trek comes from director J.J. Abrams of “Lost” fame. Don’t worry, no smoke monster here. What he does do is bring a much needed reboot to the Star Trek franchise that I would liken to what happened to the Batman franchise starting with Batman Begins. Basically he threw out all preconceived notions of the franchiase and make a movie for today’s audience. He does stay true to the characters for the most part, they are all quite recognizable with their trademark quotes, etc. And the NCC 1701, the original Enterprise looks as you would expect, so nothing too radical there, but he does not limit himself to the known history of the existing franchise.

So what you end up with here is the original crew in their youth as they assume their roles on the Enterprise, but you also get a solid reboot of the whole franchise. All of the new actors give great nods to their predecessors, playing off of some of their stereotypes and catch phrases. They have a little fun with it and go tongue in cheek but stop well short of being campy. I was worried about some of the casting. I mean, I have to admit there were times that I was expecting to see John Cho (from Harold and Kumar) as Sulu plot a course for White Castle. But it worked surprisingly well, I didn’t even hear ticking whenever I would see Sylar as Spock after a while.

This would be an easy movie to spoil. I think you’ll enjoy it most by going in not really knowing much about what to expect and just sit back and enjoy it, so I’m not going to go into the storyline much. What I will tell you is to expect a lot of absolutely killer effects, stunts, fighting and good old fashioned space battles.

We’ll bottom line it for you. 5 stars. Go see it, then buy it on Blu-ray as soon as it’s out. I don’t care whether you are a previous fan or a hardcore trekkie fanboy, if you love SciFi movies, I cant see how you could possibly not have a blast watching this movie.

Popularity: 51% [?]

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 5 Stars, Action, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Chris Pine, John Cho, PG-13, SciFi, Theatrical, Zachary Quinto