The "New" Originals
Viewed on the big screen at the local Metrolux with the usual contraband snack foods.
We are science fiction fans and especially science fiction with great special effects. Movies about space, the final frontier, tend to get us pretty excited too. So, after seeing the high movie rating on Rotten Tomatoes, we made the trek to the theatre on a rainy Saturday evening in anticipation of being entertained for a couple of hours.......and we were.
Totally engrossing, very well put together, full of action, with fine looking people and certainly the best Star Trek ever.
The movie, without giving away a lot of the story, goes back to the beginning, when each Star Trek character was just starting out. This had to be fun to write, nothing was pre-ordained regarding how the characters came into being (as far as I know) and ended up together on the Enterprise. So, we get to see James Kirk as a baby, a youngster and then as a brash, reckless but brilliant young man. How he gets to be the captain of the Enterprise involves lots of very fun to watch action and interaction with the other people who will eventually populate the bridge of the spaceship with him.
The casting was impeccable. You can see that it was done to try and come close to the original look of each character. But, it's different enough to make it better. Spock, played by Zachary Quinto, is perfection. There is no one else I can think of who would have looked so dead on. (He was the really bad guy in the TV series "Heroes".) His Spock interpretation and camaraderie (or not) with Captain Kirk is fun to watch. Captain Kirk, played by an attractive young man named Chris Pine was also perfectly cast. About the only resemblance between he and the original Captain (William Shatner) is the slightly stocky build and the thick neck topped with a nice thatch of thick hair. Beyond that, they don't look the same. The 2009 Captain Kirk is much more of a rowdy and has a rebellious streak that, combined with his apparently very high IQ, makes him a lethal combination when it comes to being a leader and dealing with arc enemies.
All of the sidekicks on the Enterprise bridge, Scotty, Bones, Uhura, Chekov, Sulu are superb. and of course, extremely smart or they wouldn't be in such lofty technical positions. Also sexy (in the case of Uhura), funny (Chekov), tough (Sulu), fiery (Bones) and precociously outspoken (Scotty). This Star Trek has a nicely added feature of romance between two of the characters that I won't reveal. Suffice to say, it's good and unexpected.
The Romulan bad guy, who I didn't recognize due to his makeup, was played with nasty gusto by Eric Bana. Throughout the movie I knew I sort of recognized him by his eyes, but was never able to place him. Now that I've looked at IMDB and know it was Bana, it's pretty obvious. The makeup job on he and his fellow nasties is very punk, with piercings, tattoos and sort of crudely rendered patterns of scar tissue. Their faces are broad, menacing and unshaven. The Romulan ship, the Narada, is a nightmare with sharp, barbed features, darkness throughout punctuated by the occasional green glowing something or other. Tubes. Leathery things. Dark Water.
Lively, intelligent story, lots of super spacey images and special effects. One of my favorite scenes is in the Iowa of the future where James T. Kirk has grown up. There are flat lands, corn fields and then suddenly a space station.
What a movie. Can't wait to see more of this next generation of Star Trek. They have hit the jackpot and with this successful new beginning are sure to reap a whole new set of fans to follow it's latest franchise. The only negative thing to say is that it will be hard to keep up this pace - this movie set a very high standard.
Rating for "Star Trek"
Here's the trailer.
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