Still living long(if not smoothly)and prospering(definitely)

Rating: 8/10 (27 May 2009)

I call myself a "reformed Trekkie". In truth,I'm sort of a "Weekend Trekkie" or "Trek hobbyist",following the original with quite a bit of interest as a teen(though,curiously,NOT so devoted as to become one of those mythic conventioneers)and then latching onto "Next generation" through late high school into college,even following with some interest "Deep Space Nine" for the first season or two. I lost my interest after that,and despite some efforts to try to hook into the TV relaunch effort that was "Enterprise",my interest fizzled some then. Then,there were the movies,which varied in quality and entertainment value but still tended to be good "waste of times"s at the very least,with probably The Wrath of Khan(1982),The Voyage Home(1986) and First Contact(1996,and probably the best of the bunch)as the strongest entries.
Suffice it to say,when I first heard about J.J.Abrams' attempting to "re-boot" the franchise,I had a certain mix of skepticism and hope. While I wanted to see the franchise return to the big screen,I held the minority opinion that the previous time-line of the show(stretching from Picard,Riker,Troi,Crusher,Data,Worf,et al)and that series of shows SHOULD be continued and not abandoned,so a "retro" or back story Trek film(pre-dating Kirk,Spock,McCoy,Uhura,Scotty,et al)was not--at least initially--something I really felt was in order. Over time(and what time,indeed:roughly two plus years from announcement of this film to release) I gradually softened to the idea of this film and was,by the time it released,VERY stoked to see it.
Overall,and after all that intro,I hacve to say that I was reasonably pleased,though maybe not as "in love" with this film as many(namely,film critics:it seems to average B+ grades from everyone from Rolling Stone to EW)but certainly not feeling the hate quite a few(mostly the seemingly 50 percent of commentators)have been showing.
The plot is neither a secret nor of any great urgency to tell,since it in fact might be the weakest element of this movie,but in a few sentences here it is: The new crew of freshly minted Starfleet grads are thrust into commandeering the Enterprise when their then Captain Pike(Bruce Greenwood)is kidnapped in a failed negotiation attempt. The new crew--a still new but disciplined Spock(Zachary Quinto,maybe the most compelling of the performances of the film),a harried assistant medical officer McCoy(Karl Urban,the Beefier DeForest Kelley,it appears),a "brilliant" communications junior officer named Uhura(Zoe Saldana)and,last but not least,a "born-to-lead"baddass named Kirk(Chris Pine,who,I must say,actually DOES fills Bill Shatner's shoes pretty well)--are pitted in battle against a sullen,vicious Romulan named Nero(Eric Bana,under heavy make-up and barely recognizable)out to exact a vendetta against Spock. Okay,did I say a FEW sentences?
It would be pure hooey of me to say there wasn't a fair amount of plot machination here that made this movie,if not less palatable,certainly a long walk from excellent. The one example I'll give is the usage of time travel,which not only creates more than its shares of story knots but also threatens to make the back-story pretty mucky from here on out(maybe that's the job of the sequel--sequels--to come). One of the primary reasons, I'm pretty sure,for that aforementioned plot device was to bring Leonard Nimoy in as an older,wiser,more human Spock and,to that end,he doesn't disappoint,as he being the old pro and gravitas that this film full of many young,semi-familiar actors filling out very familiar roles.
Director J.J.Abrams may never be confused for a cinematic(or even television)genius,but if there's one thing he DOES know it's how to extract a right amount of visceral enjoyment and adrenaline out of a story(ask anyone who watches "Lost" on a regular basis;I dare say he did pretty good with an otherwise bloated and overwrought script for Mission:Impossible 3 also).A screenplay that tries to identify the familiar players from classic Trek may strike some as too facile,others as groan-inducing,it still is able to identify the players,put them into motion and make the franchise easy to identify and apply to a less-cheesy template and more 21st-century technological sensibility.
Flawed but entertaining,the franchise is doing two out of the three tenets of the famous Vulcan greeting/send-off. Maybe this re-boot will lead to better film entries into the series. It remains to be seen. This one gets a weak eight or very strong seven.