[7]
Director J.J. Abrams reboots the Star Trek franchise with a new cast playing the original 1960s crew. The cast is perhaps the best thing about this new movie, particularly Chris Pine as James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock. The actors feel surprisingly comfortable in their formidable roles, each paying homage to the original cast in their own unique ways. Karl Urban, as crotchety ship’s doctor ‘Bones’, seems to be channeling DeForest Kelley in an easy, respectful manner. In some cases, like Anton Yelchin as Chekov and John Cho as Sulu, the new cast may even be more captivating than the original players.
This terrific casting is offset by a less-than-stellar script. It does a good job setting up the characters and introducing them to one another. But the last thing Star Trek needed was yet another story involving time travel. The opening is one of the strongest sequences in the film, as we observe the simultaneous birth of Kirk and death of his father (Chris Hemsworth in a cameo role) aboard a Federation ship under attack from a massive Romulan vessel. The Romulan in charge (a thankless role performed by Eric Bana) seeks vengeance on Spock and the Federation for failing to save the planet Romulus from a supernova explosion. He time travels in order achieve his aims, and we end up with two Spocks in the same timeline — Quinto as young Spock and veteran actor Leonard Nimoy returning as older Spock. Both Spocks help young Kirk to thwart the Romulan renegade from destroying planets with a Death Star-like technology, but only after Spock’s homeworld of Vulcan is obliterated, along with his human mother (Winona Ryder in a small role). The mechanics of the plot are tedious and uninspired, but at least it gives the cast plenty to react to.
Equally tedious is Abram’s aggressive film editing. Most of the shots in this movie flit by in milliseconds. Your eye never gets to take in a single beautifully composed frame before the crack-head editors whisk us off to another blurry image filled with lens flares. My, God, the lens flares. Between the rapid editing and intrusive flaring, Abrams style is the furthest thing from classical ‘invisible’ Hollywood style. It’s garish and obnoxious. J.J., buddy, switch to decaff.
As a lifelong Star Trek fan, I still really enjoy this new incarnation of the series — almost exclusively for the inspired casting and the well-written characters. Michael Giacchino’s robust score is another strong point, featuring at least a couple of hummable themes.
With Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Simon Pegg as Scotty, and Bruce Greenwood.
Academy Award: Best Makeup
Oscar Nominations: Best Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing