Start trek

Rating: 8/10 (24 February 2011)

I'm a first generation "Star Trek" fan without being a Trekkie, in fact Patrick Stewart is probably my favourite captain of the Enterprise, the heresy of it, but following in the recent example of the James Bond if not Star Wars franchise, it pays to go back to the start for a fresh beginning.
Naturally therefore there's a good deal of pleasure to be had in watching familiar faces pop up as the story progresses as well as familiar phrases and even surroundings and devices, spruced up with SFX and CGEN for modern consumption. There's attention to detail in continuity,for instance the original ship's Captain Pike ending up in a wheelchair recalling the TV pilot episode "The Cage" (okay maybe I am a Trekkie, after all) but are some neat narrative twists too, with young Kirk's pursuit of young Uhura pipped by her having the hots for Spock of all people. The latter-day facsimiles are all fairly with the exception of Simon Pegg's unrecognisable take on Scotty although I guess the casting stays true to the original series in casting anyone but a native Scot to play one of my countrymen.
The story is complicated yet direct enough to engage and hold interest throughout, even if Eric Bana's villain Nero probably isn't quite malevolent enough. As ever there's a race against time to save the earth and a bizarre meeting of past and future Spocks before the natural order is restored of Kirk as captain and Spock as first officer. The action scenes are terrific with hosts of daredevil stunts and there's loads of falling masonry and collapsing planets to feast the eyes on.
Important as these are, the heart of the story is the Kirk / Spock friendship, born in enmity as these things frequently are, as well as the building of the team which would later helm the bridge in future missions to come.
All in all, there's not much to fault here, the resurrection obviously being carried out by admirers of the TV prototype. The sentimentalist in me might have liked to see a few more cameos from some of the surviving cast members, rather than the one rather large part given to a very old and slightly frail Leonard Nimoy, good as it is to see him.
Just a shame to think it'll probably be another year or two for a sequel to arrive, when in the old days all you had to do was wait until next week for the next episode...