Enjoyable reboot of a classic with a few problems in the story logic

Rating: 7/10 (19 July 2009)

Star Trek is a "reboot" of the classic franchise started by Gene Roddenberry as a little television show on NBC a few decades ago. In particular, this film revisits the original incarnation of Star Trek and the subsequent movies and creates a bit of a new origin story. With a very long history of lore and legions of fans, director J.J. Abrams and company had to both respect the story of Star Trek as it was and also tread new territory. They found an out that both respected the history of the overall franchise and let them rewrite it at the same time: the alternate universe. Using the long-standing tradition in Star Trek history, the reboot boldly takes us where no fan has gone before...
The trouble all starts when revenge-bent Romulans from the future show up in the past, blowing up the ship that happens to be carrying the father of James ("Jim") Tiberius Kirk, thus altering time forever. However, Kirk, with some prodding from Captain Christopher Pike (who Star Trek fans might remember from the pilot episode "The Cage"), Kirk ends up repeating much of history anyhow. Meeting the various members of the crew that would form the Enterprise anyway, they respond to a distress call from Spock's home planet, Vulcan. Then a series of troubles occur involving the future-Romulans, amidst other things.
The story itself is convoluted at times, requires a lot of faith from the audience and takes some rather contrived leaps of logic to propel it forward. Consequently, the actual mechanics of the story often are alarmingly strange. Why is the entire Federation Fleet on the other side of the galaxy? Why would they leave their various homeworlds completely unprotected? Furthermore, a number of plot holes show up throughout the film. This is very distracting from the emotional core of the story, which is actually quite good, focusing on the friendship between Kirk, Spock and Bones as well as keeping the rest of the classic Enterprise crew well involved. If you're willing to overlook the various leaps of logic in the story, then in terms of crafting tension and twists of fate, it serves its purpose well.
One of the highlights of the film is the acting from the various players. Chris Pine does an acceptable job as Kirk, being a bit more brash and bad boy as well as generally avoiding the specific vocal inflections that William Shatner wrote into the character's legacy. Zachary Quinto's Spock was perhaps the farthest from the original portrayal, played with a lot more simmering emotion than Leonard Nimoy's original incarnation. Given the greater emphasis on Spock's human side in this incarnation, it makes sense. I also still had some trouble getting Quinto's Sylar character out of my head while watching him perform, which might have muddied my appreciation of the role. In some ways, it's the lesser members of the cast that seem to have benefited the most from this incarnation, each getting a chance to shine. Eric Bana on the other hand, gets a rather poorly drawn character to portray in Nero, having to rage and stomp around in a fit most of the time.
There are a lot of cute Star Trek references thrown in throughout the film, which Star Trek fans might appreciate. The designs for the film do a surprising amount of respect to the original designs (although I still don't understand why the female crew members get stuck in the mini- dresses reflecting the original series) while "modernizing" the appearance to appeal to our circa 2009 sense of aesthetics. Special effects are expectedly good for a tentpole pic and the overall technical production is solid.
Purists probably won't appreciate this film that much, due to its rather large deviance from canon. And anyone who bothers to think about the various story points will probably find it somewhat lacking. On the other hand, the film still does well in terms of its focus on the story of the Star Trek trio and keeps the story moving along. Personally, I find the story logic problematic enough that I was frequently distracted from the point. However, this is still a rather engaging and entertaining movie, despite those problems. It'll still be a solid distraction for those looking for a fun movie, but losing the sci-fi for adventure and its hand-waving conceits keep it from the greatness that I've heard it reflected. Which, I guess, puts it in the range of the rest of the more enjoyable Star Trek films. 7/10.