Warping Good Time

Rating: 7/10 (31 July 2012)

The past is never dead. It's not even past.
William Faulkner's famous words take on new life in this 2009 take on the classic 1960s sci-fi series, not so much a remake or reboot as a re-invigoration. People who grew up loving "Star Trek," particularly what is known to Trek fans as "The Original Series," may gulp at some of the liberties taken with familiar characters as Spock, Kirk, and Uhura, but they certainly will find much to surprise them, delight them (if they are open-minded enough going in) and certainly rekindle passions that connect with their inner child. Time warping, indeed.
In that light, the movie's plot seems quite appropriate. In the 23rd century, a band of tricked-out Romulans angry at the destruction of their planet travel back in time to avenge themselves on the Federation, whom they blame for their loss. Their actions alter what generations of fans have come to know as the Star Trek universe, to the point where the past is indeed not even the past.
Young James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) finds himself not captain of the U. S. S. Enterprise but a brig-bound renegade, one harboring understandable antipathy for a half-human, half-Vulcan named Spock (Zachary Quinto) who is Enterprise's rigid commander and seems to harbor a decided dislike for the young Iowa hotshot. How much dislike? He maroons the poor kid on an ice planet for starters.
As one character tells Kirk in the film's second half: "Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted, our destinies have changed." Translation for hard-core Trekkers: Just relax and try to enjoy the show. Nothing's broken that breaking out the old series DVDs won't fix.
The clever concept embedded in Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's script means the movie can work in all the references it wants to the series while changing things up in high style, celebrating what was great about the show and has lasted in our collective memory without laboring under too much backstory. Director J. J. Abrams facilitates this approach by emphasizing the human connections developed with the original Star Trek characters, as well as welcome shafts of humor that cut through the rousing action sequences and gee-whiz special effects.
Given all this, the movie only works as well as it does because of the sterling job done by the movie's principals, particularly the two leads. Quinto carves out some dark and original territory as Spock, understandable given the situation the film's plot puts him in, yet he also connects with Leonard Nimoy's defining interpretation of Spock from TV, both literally and figuratively. Quinto's the film's strongest asset.
Pine doesn't try to mimic his TV model, William Shatner, so much as present the same kind of wit and cocksure energy in a younger, less refined package, which comes off terrifically and connects with Abrams' tongue-in-cheek reverence for the material. Spock and Kirk take a long time to develop any kind of chemistry, but when they do, it's worth the wait.
I don't think "Star Trek" is all that great as a straight adventure movie. The central plot about the time-traveling Romulans flying around in their giant metal moth gets old fast. Visually, Abrams likes using flares way too much, and our patience is tested with too much exposition. I didn't care for Simon Pegg's comically broad interpretation of Enterprise engineer Montgomery Scott, while John Cho's Mr. Sulu is a bit dull (though perhaps because he's written too much that way.) The rest of the actors playing the movie's familiar characters really bring it, from Zoe Saldana's tough but emotional take on Uhura to Anton Yelchin's amusingly gonzo turn as Ensign Chekhov. Real fans may be surprised to see the easy gravitas Bruce Greenwood brings as a secondary series character, Captain Pike, who starts the movie as Enterprise's commander.
That's not all that will surprise them, of course, which is as it should be. "Star Trek" will be best appreciated by those with a healthy interest in the franchise going in, but it can be enjoyed by most non-Trek fans to a degree none of those earlier movies could, ironic considering how much more this film consciously hearkens back to the TV show than the earlier movies did (even, especially, those that featured the actors from the original series, which always seemed to try too hard at wholesale reinvention.)
The end result: A nice time-warp of an adventure film that gives the lie to a line by another famous writer: "You can never go home again."