The future begins, possibly

Rating: 1/10 (19 May 2009)

I have never been a particularly avid Star Trek fan, so this was hardly a must-see movie for me. Nonetheless, I was intrigued to see if JJ Abrams could revive the show in the same way that Russell T Davis revived Dr Who a few years ago.
The jury is still out.
The screenplay isn't bad in terms of character establishment and some of the dialogue is noticeably sharp and effective. The plot is pretty dumb, with some gaping holes in its logic, but this isn't crucial because the story is really just a device to introduce the new crew members and set up further movies. I quite liked the new incarnations of Kirk, Spock, Scottie, Uhura and so on. I would be happy to spend more time with them, subject to one proviso: JJ Abrams must never be allowed near Star Trek again.
For me, all enjoyment of this movie was sabotaged by his hyper-active direction. Every scene (almost every shot) is designed for maximum impact, but that means the movie has no light and shade. There is no change of pace, no pauses for reflection, no steady build up of tension and no overall dramatic arc. It starts with a climax and tries to stay there for the next two hours. But a movie that is all climaxes has no climax. The unvarying pace becomes exhausting and, ultimately, tedious.
Every scene is directed in the same way. Half the dialogue is delivered on the move; people run rather than walk; the camera never stops moving; and most of the shots are too tight. The movie constantly runs the same gamut of visual devices: aerial shots, cranes; whip pans; zooms and endless Steadicam tracks through the crowded sets. The frantic visuals are then cranked up even further by the constant quick cutting. The action scenes, in particular, are all cut, cut, cut.
Orson Welles once said that anyone could make a movie with a six inch lens and a pair of scissors but the test of a good director was what happened between cuts. Clearly, Abrams disagrees. At times, the cutting is so hectic that it seemed as if his contract must have specified that he wouldn't get paid if the camera ever stopped moving or he held a shot for more than five seconds.
As a result, the Enterprise seems to be in a state of constant panic, with the camera zapping from character to character and everyone talking over each other, so that crucial explanatory lines are lost in the perpetual babble. The action scenes, where the cutting gets even quicker and the camera gets even tighter, are often reduced to a flurry of near-indecipherable, almost abstract images.
This over-wrought style of shooting is becoming increasingly common, particularly in big action movies, and it is slowly driving me out of the cinema. However, Abrams manages to raise the irritation factor even higher with another visual affectation that I have always hated.
Lens flare!!
For more than 70 years, avoiding lens flare was one of the basic skills of a cinematographer. Then, in the mid-Sixties, it suddenly became fashionable to let it happen. I always disliked it because it just draws attention to the camera, but it was only a minor irritation in most movies - limited to a few exterior shots where (for example) car headlights shone directly into the lens. The first time it seriously bothered me was in Close Encounters, where it greatly compromised the magic of many of the effects sequences.
By the early Eighties it seemed the vogue for lens flare was dying out, but in Star Trek it is back with a vengeance. Almost every shot in this movie is smothered with light streaks, rainbow effects, bleed over, visual echoes and halos that appear around every dust mote on the lens. Sometimes it is so extreme that the whole screen whites out.
This is not only highly distracting in itself, but it undermines Abrams's whole directorial method. I might not like his high-adrenaline style, but I can appreciate what he is trying to do. The tight shots and the restless camera is trying to draw us right into the centre of the action, so we become part of it. However, the ubiquitous lens flare immediately hooks us out again, putting a barrier between us and what is happening on the screen. It feels like we are standing in the street, watching the whole movie through the reflections on a dirty shop window.
Of course, the blame must be shared by the Art Director, who peppered every set with those bright, low-level lights and with the cinematographer who failed to persuade Abrams to let him him filter out the problem.
Although I regard this movie as an unmitigated disaster, there is no reason why the next movie shouldn't be much better. For me, Star Trek was never really about the characters or the endless elaboration of the Star Trek universe. At its heart, Star Trek was just an efficient vehicle for tackling a wide range of SF ideas. That hasn't changed.
A good SF story typically takes the form of a puzzle that has to be solved by a deadline. In SF books we don't care too much about fine writing or subtle characterisation (although they do no harm). All we really want is an intriguing problem with an ingenious solution. There are still plenty of good SF stories waiting to be told.
Having introduced the new characters and re-launched the series, a couple of good stories is all it will take to make me forget this frustrating aberration.
Despite everything, I am not without hope.
PS: On re-reading this, I still stand by what I wrote, but I also have to acknowledge that Abrams has injected a bit of life into what had become a very stodgy show.