The Star Trek Movie

If you have a TV, get the paper, talk to other human beings or aren't in a vegetable state of mind, then you've most likely heard or even seen the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. I saw it for myself on May 8th.

It's a wild ride of vivid visuals and action-packed (may be a little over packed) scenes. Overall, I thought it was O.K. As a long time Star Trek fan, I could tell the franchise was taking a completely new turn with this film. It's definitely a far cry from the previous Star Trek movies, which concentrate more heavily on the plot and are, admittedly, downright boring for anyone but a true Trekker at times. This new film breaks away from that tradition by keeping the action going steadily throughout the show. I think a lot of movies are doing that these days because the attention spans of theatre audiences are growing shorter and shorter by the year. If a movie doesn't have doses of sexual innuendo, large explosions and utterly impossible situational action or situational comedy, then it's either a lame movie or just a chick-flick .

I didn't dislike the movie. I was both entertained and glad I got to see it with my friends. I think this film had a lot to do in a short amount of time. This seems common with the first-in-a-series action or comic-based movies. The film has to introduce all of the characters, tie them all together somehow, and work a plot in there somewhere. This film did a pretty good job of that, but the constant action did get a little old for me. It was to the point to where you could clearly predict that something bad was going to happen. Take the scene where Kirk and Scotty get beamed onto the Enterprise, for instance. You instantly knew Scotty was in that water tank and it was going to be a race for Kirk to save him before certain death. They couldn't just beam onto the ship safely and move on to what they were there to do. You knew he'd be alright, though, because he hadn't donned the red shirt yet (they'd never kill Scotty anyway, come on!). I did enjoy the space-jumping scene where the red suit guy died almost immediately and nobody cared too much. Glad to see they didn't deviate from that aspect of classic Trek .

I have some more opinions on the film, but I can save myself a lot of typing by pointing you to Roger Ebert's review. I agree with him 100% on this one. Some of the things I really liked in the film were Zachary Quinto's portrayal of Spock, how the ship seemed more "ship-like" in Engineering and other sections, and Karl Urban's portrayal of Dr. McCoy. The opening sequence leading up to the death of Kirk's father was the best part of the film. The sequence of "kid Krik" blasting Sabotage (1994 flashback!) and getting the oh-so-annoying Nokia product placement phone call in the classic Corvette was the worst by far.

Question for you. Did this movie seem a little...familiar? Thanks to my friend KrAzE for showing this to me.