Trekking back to the stars

Star Trek
Director: JJ Abrams
Cast: John Cho, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Winona Ryder, Zoë Saldana, Eric Bana and Leonard Nimoy
Rating: ***

So after years of seeing men with bowl cut-hair styles and pointed ears; people who wear blue tight fits and raise their hands, their fingers making a V to say “Hi”, and commanders who navigate their ships around comets and supernovas comes the 11th Star Trek film, with plans to reinvigorate the franchise and convert newbies into Trekkies.

Set in an ‘alternate reality’, JJ Abrams goes back to the beginning, with the birth of James T Kirk (Chris Pine) (in a space shuttle). Thus the film opens with a brilliant battle scene between Federation starship USS Kelvin and the Romulan starship from the future Narada, captained by the evil Nero (Eric Bana). Kirk’s father George Kirk, the acting captain of the ship sacrifices himself and stays back to fight the Romulans, while the others evacuate, along with a pregnant Mrs Kirk, who delivers James while escaping, as her husband is blown to shreds.

This being an origin story, there is a scene of a kid James Kirk tearing down a highway in a stolen hot rod, which is juxtaposed with a young brainiac Spock in faraway emotion-disregarding Vulcan, problem-solving.

The two don’t meet until at Starfleet academy, where Kirk is about to graduate and Spock is an instructor. And like all great romances, their relationship starts off roughly. There are jibes and counter jibes aplenty, what with a pragmatic, straight-talking apparently emotionless Spock pitted against a brash, cocky, talking and working straight-from-the-heart Kirk. And this is when the movie really sparkles, with their crackling-chemistry.

To get back to the story, Nero has traveled through a black hole and is thus in the past and all set on a course of revenge to destroy the planets of the Federation (and he’s successfully does that with Vulcan). But just as he sets his eyes on Earth and starts drilling into it, enters Kirk and Spock to save the day. Kirk becomes commander of the USS Enterprise, after the captain is held hostage and Spock compromised when he is overcome with emotion when Vulcan is destroyed.

There is enough action, grandiose and witty lines to make new fans of the franchise, but not all is hunky-dory. The character and villainy of Nero is not well-established (resembling more a bald man with tattoos) at least for such a comic-book like film. And even as menacing (jelly fish like) as the starship Nero captained-Narada looks, the insides and décor of it required much more thought.

All it appears is like a dark expanses filled with industrial sludge. The plot also sometimes unfolds slightly too quickly to register its momentousness (like revelations of time travel or meeting of future characters).

The acting is fine, the lines witty and with all the grandiose, the film does makes a strong enough impact for more films from the franchise.