I have to admit to having gone to see the Star Trek movie, because it was nearly perfect.
I was not a big fan of the TV series; I always thought they were too corny, with bad lines, silly plots, and ugly costumes.
This movie, on the other hand, takes the best of Star Trek, and puts a more modern turn on the production. The battles were the usual meld of metal flying and crashing, and parts of the plot were incomprehensible (characters who acted on information known to the audience, although it’s not clear how the character knew). But the acting and the portrayal of the characters and their interactions were perfect, and after all that’s what a movie about the origin of Captain Kirk and Spock needs to be about. Kirk had exactly the right mixture of responsibility and humor. The new Spock caught the exact look of puzzlement at human jokes or inconsistencies (although the fact that the actor previously played the arch-villain on Heroes was slightly difficult to ignore). Scotty’s introduction was a great way to add a deus ex machina (a brilliant engineer) to solve all remaining plot lines (although, again, I don’t understand how he knew what he apparently knew). The supporting characters were fun: Sulu was the perfect gallant lieutenant; Chekov’s accent was exactly right for breaking up the tension (how serious can a battle station call in incomprehensible Russian be?)
I hope they make several more like this one. J J Abrams is a genius; all of his shows have been unique and intriguing.
Next week, Wolverine.
***********
After I wrote that, I went to read some real reviewers’ opinions of the movie. Now the plot seems even stupider: a badly worked out time-travel ruse to move the new actors into a parallel universe. No wonder I could never understand why anyone was doing what they were doing. . . Still, the actors were good, and if you ignore the “real” Star Trek, it was a fun movie.
May 10, 2009 at 12:34 am
A parallel universe where they can make more without having to jump backwards or forwards in history too much. I saw it last night and thought it was quite entertaining, though I am not a Trekkie by any stretch of the imagination.
May 10, 2009 at 11:07 am
Always love when people complain Sci-Fi movies aren’t realistic… What about how they just materialize out of know where, making a travesty of Einsteins Relativity Theory??? Or how they haven’t figured out unit dose syringes in the 23rd Century??
You wanta see an Unrealistic Movie, try “Knocked Up”, where a Hot TV Infobabe falls in love with a Fat Unemployed Dope fiend…
I always admired Spock, yearning for the day he’d bee-otch slap that prima donna Dr. McCoy… in fact I’d have never gone to Med School if there were any Starship Science Officer jobs back in 1982…
Live Long and Prosper,
Frank
May 22, 2009 at 10:00 am
95% positive on RottenTomatoes.com. I liked it, but interpred some of the corny dialogue as tongue-in-cheek.
And the parallel universe was a bit confusing. Who truly discovered the formula for beaming someone into a warp-speed craft? Scotty evidently told it to Future Spock, who passed it on to present Scotty.