Boldly Goes Where No Star Trek Movie Has Gone Before

Rating: 9/10 (30 May 2009)

I'm not a Trekkie, and although I don't hate the Star Trek franchise, I'm not a huge fan of it either. I'm more like the child/girlfriend/wife who gets dragged to the movie by father/boyfriend/husband. Usually I have to suffer through or at the very least, tolerate, the movie for about 2 hours. I was expecting less from this one, since it was a remake and usually remakes don't measure up to the originals. I was totally wrong. This movie was 100% better than I expected.
What made this movie, IMO, a 9? Well, for starters, it has a fantastic opening sequence. A federation ship is attacked by a Romulan mining ship about 1,000 times its size. The new captain, realizing that either escape or fighting back is futile, evacuates the entire crew and to create a diversion, crashes the federation ship into the Romulan ship. Just before he dies, the captain's wife gives birth to his son, who is named James Tiberius Kirk.
The rest of the movie follows James Kirk and Spock through critical moments during their childhood and teenage years, leading up to their early days in the Starfleet Academy. The movie explains how the original crew of the Enterprise met and eventually came together. Truth to tell, I was never interested in these characters back stories at all in the past, but this movie made these iconic characters and their histories humanized and fully relatable (yes, even Spock, who supposedly has no emotions, has his softer side brought out).
Though played by different actors, the resemblance to the original cast is uncanny. Also, although the sets were obviously more advanced than the 1960's series, their uniforms and the spaceship have that 1960's vibe without being dated. Plus there are several odds twists in the movie that I will not reveal here but one of which is extremely clever on the director's part.
If you think it's starting to sound like a sci-fi "Lifetime" movie, trust me, it's not. There is tons of action, from start to finish. This film would give "Die Hard" a run for its money on the number of action sequences. It seems like Kirk gets beaten up about 43 times throughout this movie, but only suffers a few superficial scratches. That and a few of the plot devices, like how Kirk, 'grounded' for cheating on an exam, gets abroad the Enterprise, are a little far fetched at times, which is why I gave it a 9 instead of a 10. Other than that, it's a fantastic movie that I recommend all girlfriends of 'Star Trek' fans go see.