Star Trek by J.J. Abrams

Old Wine in a Brand New Bottle

J.J. Abram's version of Star Trek, the beloved franchise that started as a three season TV show over forty years ago, is spectacular in capturing the character, the humor, and the action that was all that was good about the series.

One can believe that Chris Pine is the young punk version of James T. Kirk, the "most highly educated repeat offender in the mid west." Zachary Quinto's young Spock struggles to keep his Vulcan calm with all of those human emotions raging just below the surface. Karl Urban now just owns Dr. Leonard McCoy, the big, cynical, yet good hearted country doctor whose McCoy catch phrases ("damnit Jim!" '"I'm a Doctor, not a...") rolls off his tongue as if he were doing them all of his life.

And who can deny that Zoe Zaldana's Uhura is a complete babe? Simon Pregg, John Cho, and Anton Yelchin do good turns as Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov respectively.

The humor? The sequence where young punk Kirk meets Uhura for the first time and—being Kirk—tries to hit on her is laugh out loud funny. It could not, of course, have ever been done on the series. The humor draws from the characters and how they start to mesh together.

The action? From ship to ship combat to parachute jumps from orbit to sword duels really, really high up, J.J. Abram's Star Trek has it in abundance.

There is and will be much complaint about the time travel theme and how the "original time line" has been altered forever. Because of the Romulan from the 24^th Century who seems to have it in for the entire universe, billions die who otherwise did not.

But if the Star Trek franchise is to be renewed, and the movie does a good job doing it, things have to change. A simple "Star Trek the Early Years" isn't going to be very exciting if we know what's going to happen. Now, thanks to the altered timeline, we don't. That is a sound artistic choice, in this reviewer's opinion.

Not that J.J. Abrams' Star Trek didn't have flaws. Eric Bana's Romulan was a little flat where insane villains go. There were some violations of canon and of logic that could not have been entirely explained by the altered time line. Nimoy's Spock Prime was just a little too much Obiwan like to suit.