Star Trek: Rating: 3 stars

Like all fine cheese, this fandom improves with age.

Star Trek (2009)
2009 · PG-13 · Science Fiction
Reviewed June 2, 2009

Normally I avoid seeing movies in theaters — not only am I cheap, I’m also claustrophobic and agoraphobic and achluophobic and ligyrophobic and whatever you call being afraid that I’ll be the only one to laugh really loudly at a violent death scene. But I am also a Trekkie, and as a Trekkie I am honor-bound to boost my fandom’s box office rating by boldly going to the nearest big screen and paying $5 for the whole experience. I’m also trying to make up for the fact that I went to a midnight showing of Star Wars: Episode II the day it opened, an adulterous sin which I may never fully cleanse from my soul.

Unlike SWE2, which I watched in a roomful of screaming geeks all roughly my own age, I viewed Star Trek in a mostly-empty theater with only a handful of other movie-goers, most of whom were middle-aged men. That surprised me — judging from the trailers I’d seen, Trek seems to be aimed squarely at folks my age and under, what with the pretty-boy captain and the tossing-out of most of the canonical backstory.

I was right. The movie begins with a cliché so old that it probably appears in ancient Sumerian epics: a husband and wife have a last-minute discussion of their really-soon-to-be-born child’s name (she wants Tiberius, he wants Jim), while things explode in space and the husband grimly kamikazes his starship into the attacking Romulan vessel. (What? Those ancient Sumerians were ahead of their time.) This specific breed of tearjerking is used more frequently than the Wilhelm Scream, and elicits the same half-snicker, half-groan from even the most casual filmgoer. Fortunately, the film moves past that point fairly quickly, and we get the obligatory rundown of the main character’s childhoods: Jim Kirk is a boy rebel who drives cars off cliffs, while Spock is a brainiac who responds to Vulcan bullying with both words and fists. (By the way, “Vulcan bullying” is just as hilariously awkward as it sounds: “I presume you have prepared new insults for me today… This is the 35th time you have attempted to elicit an emotional reaction from me,” says mini-Spock calmly to his tormentors.) It’s all very clichéd, but J. J. Abrams presents it well, and the story moves fast enough that at least we don’t have to linger on the predictable stuff.

And that’s the film in its entirety, pro and con: sparkly and well-set, but a cut you’ve seen a million times before. There’s not an explosion, one-liner, or Dutch angle out of place, and you see it all coming a mile away. I’m inclined to be less harsh on this franchise than I would be on a stand-alone film, since even Trekkies more obsessed than I must admit that the storylines of the original show (and most of its resultant films) were never less than predictable. (I just rewatched City on the Edge of Forever, and I’m just gonna come out and say it: good idea, corny execution. Commence the tribble-slinging.) Miracle of miracles, Abrams makes it work. An example of his skill is a scene that has Kirk running frantically about the Enterprise, hands and tongue swelling like balloons from a bad reaction to a vaccine, warning the bridge crew what fresh hell they’re about to fly straight into while McCoy scurries after him trying to medicate him. It’s a cheesy scene, played purely for slapstick, and it shouldn’t even work as that — and yet it does work, to the point where I was chuckling out loud. (And it wasn’t even a death scene!)

Aside from Abrams and his magic touch, the sagging story relies mainly on the efforts of Zachary Quinto and Zoe Saldana, the only two actors worth watching; both have obviously put great thought into their characters and how they (re)interpret them, and it shows. Eric Bana, too, gets half-props for obviously having a blast in his role as the baddie Romulan, Nero — and can I take a moment to roll my eyes at that name, because Nero? Really? — and would somebody please hand him a toothpick to help get the scenery out of his teeth. Dr. McCoy, my favorite OC character, fades to a mere caricature under Karl Urban’s talentless handling. Chris Pine annoys the crap out of me, not because Shatner is impossible to top or because I like Kirk so much but because Pine’s looks and acting level seem to take it from Star Trek: OS to Star Trek: O.C. Anyway, I can’t hear him over the sound of how awesome Quinto is. Not only does he get everything right, I’d venture so far as to say he improves upon Leonard Nimoy’s version — heresy, I know, but that was my initial impression and I’m sticking to it. At least he doesn’t slouch, which was something that always bugged me about Nimoy — somehow, I don’t picture Vulcans as having bad posture. On the other hand, there is that (Hover over the grayed-out text to reveal spoilers) make-out session with Uhura on the launch pad, which is out of character and out of species to the point that it would have made my head explode, had not my head already exploded from the first Spock/Uhura make-out session. There was nothing wrong with the first one; it was just the reveal that caught me off guard. That’s the only thing in the film I didn’t see coming, and it was AWESOME — I’ve always secretly ’shipped that pair.)

Of course, there were lots and lots and lots of non-canonicalisms and continuity errors, but I’m suspending my Trekkie disbelief and giving it a pass, since the story’s supposed to be alternate-history (yeah, that’s kind of a spoiler, but since that’s what all the promoters have been using as a defense against the rabid Trekkies, you’ve all probably heard about it already). The whole thing relies on time travel — surprise, surprise — but is explained in a way that sounds even bullshittier than the average Star Trek time travel plot. Then again, it’s Leonard Nimoy explaining it all, so: pass.

I managed to make it out of the theater before I started nitpicking, although I don’t think any of the old guys around me would have launched themselves at my throat had they heard me comment that Leonard Nimoy’s dentures don’t seem to fit that well. But part of the joy of Star Trek is the nitpicking; if I hadn’t liked it, I wouldn’t have paid any attention at all, but I liked it enough to spend the rest of the afternoon picking it apart, scene by scene, and now again in this review. Star Trek 2009 is a fitting homage to the original series, a new twist on an old recipe: take sci-fi, stir in melodrama, top with cheese, and serve.