FOKER'S MOVIE REVIEW - 'STAR TREK' (From Your Local Guardian)

FOKER'S MOVIE REVIEW - 'STAR TREK'

10:28pm Tuesday 12th May 2009 in

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I’d like to thank a certain Jeffrey Jacob Abrams for bringing back a popular classic to our cinemas. Back in the day, Star Trek was one of the most popular TV programs in the Universe, well at least in my little corner of Surrey. And to think it only ran for three years from 1966 to 1969. Then in 1979 Star Trek The Motion Picture hit the screens and the franchise continued into the early 90’s until The Next Generation took over.

The formula started to get tired and it seemed like the end of Star Trek movies forever…until JJ Abrams came along. He has eye for a good story and a knack for exciting action scenes, time travel, monsters and as all Lost fans know, he likes to mess with the audience’s mind.

Captain James Tiberius Kirk is played by relative newcomer Chris Pine who does a good job in adding his own mark on the character while retaining some of the charm and arrogance of the original Kirk. Spock (Zachary Quinto, the nasty Sylar in Heroes) bares an uncanny resemblance to the Spock of old and has even mastered the mannerism with the ‘one eyebrow raised’ look. Dr “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban) has the gruff cynical ‘love-hate’ banter with Spock and then there’s ‘Scotty’ (Simon Pegg) sounding like David Tennant as Doctor Who. Pegg doesn’t come into the film until halfway through but steals the show with some of the best lines.

The film grips from the opening scene where we see the USS Kelvin on a routine mission coming face to face with a gigantic Romulan mining vessel which has been converted to an impregnable warship hurtling out of a Black Hole. On board the Kelvin is Kirk’s Father George who by default takes full command of the Kelvin. George Kirk’s moment as Captain only last’s twelve minutes and goes down with his ship as he valiantly rams it into the belly of the Romulan craft to enable his crew to evacuate, including his pregnant wife carrying the future James T Kirk.

From here on we see Kirk as a young rebellious boy and then we skip a couple of decades to when Kirk becomes a young rebellious man about to enter Starship Academy. It’s at the Academy that he befriends McCoy and has an unsuccessful flirt with Uhura and also locks horns with a certain Vulcan. It’s not long before we are back into the action again as Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) puts together his crew including a young Russian co-pilot Chekov (Anton Yelchin, born in Russia but grew up in the US) and the ever dependable Sulu (John Cho) who even gets to kick some ass. Kirk is left behind but manages to smuggle on board the Enterprise with the help of “Bones” and together with a group of Federation Starships they set off to investigate a distress signal from the planet Vulcan.

The Enterprise is confronted by the 25 year return of the huge Romulan vessel helmed by the volatile Captain Nero (an unrecognisable Eric Bana) that has set about drilling a deep hole into the Vulcan core. The drill is like some giant umbilical cord stretching from the Romulan ship to the surface of the planet with a large platform halfway along that houses a jamming signal. This leads into a great set piece with the young Kirk, Sulu and the obligatory ‘red jersey’ dispensable crew member sky diving onto the platform to disable the device. Real edge of the seat stuff.

Star Trek has a good script with plenty of in-jokes and the special effects are superb, no wobbly sets or polystyrene here and we also get treated to Leonard Nimoy returning as the older Spock who also narrates the famous “Space, the final frontier” speech.

JJ Abrams has proved that he can hold an audience with the underrated MI3 and the experimental Cloverfield. However, there were one or two moments that could have come straight out of the Sci-Fi spoof ‘Galaxy Quest’.

This new Star Trek is all set for a franchise that I’m sure will run and run. You really must see this film on the big screen with an even bigger tub of popcorn.

4 stars.