SpaceBalls for Trekkers

Rating: 6/10 (8 May 2009)

I thought this was a great movie, very entertaining. But not in the same way that I thought movies 2 through 9 were great movies; more along the lines of Space Balls or UHF. Don't get me wrong, the story was interesting and the action kept me on the edge of my seat. And once it was revealed that the entire story takes place in an alternate time line I was able to appreciate the movie even more now that I was no longer asking every why every other scene was contradicting established Trek history. But the characters in this film seemed like spoofs of the beloved characters we love. In much the same same way that Mel Brooks royally spoofed Star Wars with Spaceballs (1987) and Weird Al royally spoofed Ghandi and other classics with UHF (1989), most of the crew became mere caricatures of their counterparts from the TV show and first six films. From McCoy showing up as a morbidly pessimistic hypochondriac and becoming almost mad scientist-like in the way he keeps injecting Kirk to get rid of the effects of previous injection, to Checkov speaking with such an overly Russian accent that the computer could not understand him.
I did enjoy this movie just as I did with Spaceballs and UHF. Actually this Star Trek movie is a step above the other films I mention here.
In spite of the fact (or maybe partly because of the fact) that I find myself wondering if JJ Abrams had asked comedians Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder for help recreating these people I thought it was a great movie.