Not just for Trekkies Anymore!

Rating: 9/10 (23 May 2009)

Just saw the Star Trek movie and it was great. It's true what we've been hearing about this J J Abrams product...Somehow he managed the nifty balancing act of making the film accessible to non-Trekkies without dumbing or watering it down. My only complaint...not enough Scotty! Chris Pine as Kirk has it down. The backstory works, as does the way he plays a young adult James Tiberius Kirk... fearless horndog with a heart of gold ,major daddy issues and a wee bit of impulse control trouble. Honestly, though, there wasn't a bad piece of casting in the whole thing. I had never heard of anyone in the cast before other than Zachary Quinto playing Spock (this guy's creepy-yet-strangely-appealing performance as Sylar pretty much MADE the NBC series "Heroes" must-see-TV) and Simon Pegg playing Scotty (I had my doubts on a Brit doing a Scots accent/characterization, but as those who saw "Shaun of the Dead" know, the man is just plain flat-out funny and impossible to dislike for any reason). I didn't even know til I saw IMDb.com that Eric Bana was in the cast...he had the cojones to go into total unrecognizable alien villain mode (you can't in any way tell who it is behind the Romulan makeup). But all the major cast members both live up to their original-series reputations and put a little extra spin to it. I never watched "Lost" but can see Abrams has a major knack for managing large ensemble casts as he did there.
There are definitely sequels coming for this one...not just a "logical" conclusion to make, but obvious by what they seem to be saving for later...not a single Klingon to be found in this one! And unlike some films, this one actually DESERVES sequels!