I thought I’d add a review of the new Star Trek movie to the plethora already cluttering the web. The film has received rave reviews on it’s worldwide opening and I was fascinated to see what had been achieved. My feelings about the show have changed over the years, becoming more complex and significantly more divided. There are elements of the sociopolitical world view propagated by Star Trek that I no longer feel able to unquestioningly accept but I’ve retained a surprising degree of affection for it and I was excited to head to the cinema to see it.
It seems as if I’ve been watching Trek forever and like many of my generation spent many childhood hours in front of the family TV entranced by the adventures of the original Kirk, Spock and McCoy. This was back in the 70’s, when it was BBC2 midweek staple. I enjoyed the movies that followed, liked ‘Star Trek : The Next Generation’ watched ‘Deep Space 9′ and ‘Voyager’ but I loathed the dark and gloomy ‘Enterprise’ and was not disappointed when it was cancelled amidst falling viewing figures and fan apathy.
Like many, I assumed that Star Trek’s day in the prime-time spotlight was effectively over – until this movie’s massive pre-release campaign. I had some good memories of Trek, but I didn’t expect this movie to deliver anything to equal those. My hope was that it might prove to be an entertaining summer blockbuster, free of some of the tortuous darkness and conflicted morality that has afflicted almost every superhero flick and fantasy adventure released in the last few years.
On that score it doesn’t disappoint. As a giant adrenalized spectacle for a generation raised on the web, MTV, blipverts, video-games and ‘Star Wars’ the movie pays off big-time, delivering action, explosions, laughs and excitement at a furious pace. This is a movie in an incredible hurry and in the process, entire character arcs are often collapsed into a few short scenes. Nevertheless, it’s a slick and sassy reinvention of the origin story and delivers upon its promise to re-tool a tired franchise. It moves at warp 9 for almost it’s entire 2 hours and 6 minutes and whilst this is a positive for the film as a visual roller-coaster, it creates an uneven tone for the movie as an engaging human drama.
The back story of Kirk and Spock is given interesting if perfunctory treatment. One scene of a young Kirk driving a stolen car at reckless speed through the Iowa desert pursued by a robotic flying policeman, begins promisingly and ends thrillingly. The car career’s to it’s demise over a deep ravine whilst young Kirk leaps for his life. Sadly it’s over almost before it begins. The movie doesn’t have time to explore the character further. What does it mean to the young Kirk, to grow up without a father? This is something the movie merely hints at. There’s little for the audience else to do except draw the most general of conclusions and move on. Similarly, the scene of a young Spock being ridiculed by his Vulcan classmates for being half-human, offers a tantalizing glimpse of the conflicts simmering beneath the surface of this iconic vulcanic character but fails to flesh them out.
This isn’t a terrible problem, because the movie remains relentlessly enjoyable but it’s something of a wasted opportunity. It would have been nice to substantially deepen these characters, to offer us truly fresh perspectives on them. This is an adventure story in a hurry and the audience simply has to buckle-up and enjoy the ride. It’s left to the actors to convey subtle nuances, to tell us new things about these familiar characters simply by the way they inhabit them. The actors all do admirable jobs of with Zach Quinto’s Spock proving the most memorable and Karl Urban’s McCoy the most faithful. Chris Pine also does an excellent job in the terribly difficult lead role. Nobody s badly miscast and all hit their marks admirably, it’s simply the movie doesn’t have time to do much more than say hello…
Visually it’s hard to fault the film. Much of the set design, costuming and it’s graphical overlay is simply stunning, managing to convey familiarity and freshness at the same time. Some of the space-battles are a too little frenetic and it’s occasionally difficult to see what’s actually going on amidst the fireworks and carnage. It’s if the SFX department had slightly too much time and a little too much budget and went off on a bit of a splurge but it’s entertaining enough and at times it’s almost majestic.
Having said that Star Trek is a genuine triumph in many ways. It’s slick, enjoyable, utterly modern and sure to please an enormously wide-ranging audience. On those terms it is an undoubted success. Personally however I hope that the sequel focusses just a little more on delivering character moments that are as outstanding as the action canvas and visual tone established in this opener
