Matt’s Review: Star Trek is a Movie Everyone Can Enjoy

GRADE: B+

I will start by saying I am not a huge Star Trek fan, especially of the first series that pre-dates my existence. As a child I did watch some Star Trek: The Next Generation starring Jean-Luc Picard with my mother. From that I have very basic knowledge of the Star Trek universe. With that in mind, before the movie started I said to myself, “Alright, tell me about Star Trek.” Once the film was rolling, I was ecstatic to find the writers (Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman) of Star Trek were indeed taking viewers back to the beginning and providing all necessary background information for new comers.

The film is of course about the first Starship Enterprise. Kurtzman and Oric catapult viewers into a dynamic opening scene featuring James’ father as a Starfleet captain saving his infant son, his wife, and the rest of his crew in the face of certain defeat from a well advanced Romulan enemy. The leader of the cutthroat Romulans is played to par by Eric Bana.

The story creates background for the two main characters, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto), showing them as they advance through childhood. Even as a child James is adventuresome and fearless. Whether it be driving an old school mustang over 100 mph or getting into bar fights. Spock on the other hand is a refined and excellent student working to overcome his disadvantage of being half human in the pure-blooded Vulcan culture. The duo first meet each other in Starfleet training. Instantly their opposing personalities cause obvious distaste for the other.

The Starship Enterprise sets off into space on a wild adventure against the previously mentioned superior enemy (the Romulan’s you idiot). The film slowly introduces the audience to many of the other staple characters in the Star Trek universe like: Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Hikaru Sulu (John Cho), Nyota Uhura (the stunning Zoe Saldana) and Pavel Chekov (the little known, Anton Yelchin). All these supporting characters contributed wonderfully to the story and many of the more prolific actors brought their star power to the screen (Urban and Pegg).

I will reiterate how well written the story is. The script provided depth to the characters featured so that viewers do not need any knowledge of Star Trek to follow along with this film. The most important and well written part in the film was the drama between the characters of Spock and Kirk. This gave the film an added internal conflict between the shipmates as they take on an outside adversary in the Romulans.

The soundtrack in Star Trek and the constructed sets were off the charts. The music felt similar to what I had heard from the show, but more modern. My adoration for the music comes from each piece helping set the scenes, especially the space sequences. The special effects in the film are some of the best I have seen since Transformers crashed into theaters two summers ago. I was blown back in my seat from the shots shown of the exterior of the ship and the surrounding elements of space. The use of black holes was visually captivating in every scene the space anomaly was featured in. The concept of a black hole itself pushes our brains ability to comprehend outer space. If you are not following my line of thought you need to Google “black holes” and get your mind rocked. Anyway, the Enterprise, the enemy Romulan spaceship, and all other shots from space looked better than a Bar Refaeli photo shoot.

Besides the remarkable scenes shot in space, I thought the rest of the direction was pretty basic. A big weakness in the film was J.J. Abrams failing to use a variety of shots with his scenes. The lighting in the scenes became a problem for me when Abrams was bombarding the screen with close ups on actors’ faces. Especially on the Enterprise, a set constructed with thousands of lights, there is a light flashing directly into the camera (called a lens flare) during almost every interior scene. Granted I know this can be an atheistic choice, but here, in my opinion, it was a bad one (and one that was repeated a hundred times). I consider that poor cinematography.

Another area Star Trek suffers from is too many elements of favorable coincidence for the good guys. Movies that overuse this concept never brew well in my movie mind. Too many parts involving the impossible happening just in the “nick” of time (when you see the scene with Kirk on the planet of ice, you will know what I mean) to save our characters. It is a fictional movie, but realism is never a bad thing in movies like this.

The acting was well done from the entire cast of Star Trek. For his first big main character role, Chris Pine killed as James T. Kirk (killed=awesome). The chemistry between the young Kirk and Spock is dynamite as viewers see the beginning of their long relationship unfold. I loved seeing the original TV series Spock, Leonard Nimoy, play a part in the story. I am just going to put this out there, but he is not a good actor in this film. It is not a stretch to say that the new age Spock played by Quinto was much better in the film than the original Spock.

Overall, Star Trek was a great revamp of a previously dead movie series. It flowed smoothly to the end and did not disappoint once the story got there. Definitely the best film to come out since Watchmen. Trekkies as well as new comers to the series will enjoy this film all the same. The door was obviously left open for sequels in the future; when the film ended, I was left wanting to see more.

What Should You Do? Go to the theater and see Star Trek… please not X-Men Origins: Wolverine.