I must admit that although the enormous build up for this film had left others frantic with excitement, I’d not really been one of them.
But by the time it arrived in cinemas at the weekend, I was certainly intrigued enough to want to go and see this “reboot” of the Star Trek franchise.
I’ve never been a massive Star Trek fan. I enjoy it and I’m sure that I’ve seen all the original series. I’ve also seen many of the Next Generation, but Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise only ever saw me dipping in and out.
I’d also begun to wonder if JJ Abrams had been taking on too much recently. I’ve actually stopped watching Lost – not having caught any of this series, and only really watched the last series half-heartedly. Perhaps I’ll catch up with it on DVD. Then there’s Fringe which is basically a new take on The X-Files although perfectly decent for all that.
Then we’ve also had Cloverfield, another cancelled TV series, and any number of unnamed projects associated with Abrams on IMDB.
That said, I thought his edition of Mission Impossible was pretty decent and word of mouth sounded good.
The new Star Trek film is actually really good. The story they’ve come up with lets them move on without what has come before (or will happen), and the characters are all pretty much as we grew up with them (assuming you grew up with the old 60s series). The action is good, and the effects are excellent. This isn’t a mess like even the trailer for Transfomers 2 before this film was.
Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto completely inhabit Kirk and Spock and were it not for the fact that Leonard Nimoy’s in this film (and it feels much more than a cameo by the way), you’d almost forget they existed.
They’ve even managed to pull off things like updating the uniforms while retaining the feel of the sixties originals. The overall feel of the film is right – the scale’s right for the big screen yet it feels like it has some relation to the original series.
I’m sure I didn’t spot half the hidden fan references littered throughout the film, but that was all to the good, because you could come in fresh and watch this film without knowing anything else about the Star Trek universe.
It’s not the best science fiction film you’ll ever see, but it’s set the bar high for the rest of the summer’s blockbusters, and it’s certainly the best Star Trek film.