Movie: Star Trek
Director: J.J. Abrams
Staring: Bruce Greenwood
Let’s face it folks, a number of people will not like what I am about to say. I don’t even like what I’m about to say, but I’ve come to terms with it. JJ Abrams was in charge of giving a new life to the Star Trek franchise, and he did so from a financial perspective, but he KILLED the very idea that the show was based on.
I am by no means a “trekkie”. I always found great enjoyment in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but I never explored the philosophical meaning of what Star Trek meant to society. I never decided to learn a fake language to show how dedicated I was to the show, and I never wrote letters to Paramount to point out errors in the storyline developed by one of their writers. I never took it seriously, I simply enjoyed the time I spent watching the show.
When the news that Star Trek was coming to the big screen as a JJ Abrams production, I was cautiously optimistic. The concept of telling the back-story of the old cast was a sound idea, but I had great hesitation because I find that most of the work JJ Abrams attached his name to is crap. This new incarnation of Star Trek is no different.
First, the acting and character development was unbalanced. As the viewer we have a number characters we trust and love but they are not the characters we remember. Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock, was one of the strongest performances in the movie. For an individual who is supposed to be unemotional, he did an outstanding job of making the audience care about his situation. Eric Bana, playing Nero, does a great job of playing someone evil. It almost seems effortless. Sulu, played by John Cho of Harold and Kumar fame, is fascinating and looks like a guy who can kick ass and taken names… and the other “main” characters don’t draw the viewer in.
Chris Pine, the relatively unheard of actor, does a piss poor job of playing the almightily leader – Kirk. His acting was weak and he created a character that was a drunk, a wild card and lacked any military experience. Basically, showing him as a punk. This goes against all portrayals set before this time. Karl Urban, aka Bones McCoy, was more of a lapdog to Kirk than an actual character and the great Simon Pegg was underutilized, if not forgotten, as Scotty.
But the movie did have Bruce Greenwood.
Greenwood, an outstanding actor with a resume that is unmatched, sets a great mentor and leader role. Every time he is on screen he is the center of attention. If he hadn’t been involved with the movie, I honestly think I would not have been able to watch the film.
The graphics… yea… the graphics.
JJ Abrams was obviously going to pay attention to the graphics, but there was too much attention on the wrong things while paying too little attention to what really matters. When the viewer first sees San Francisco, where Star Fleet is located, it just looks bad… it looks like a really poor model. When the shuttle crafts are talking off, I was looking for the wires holding the prop up. Seriously, the special effects from Blade Runner – all of 26 years old – looks better than some of the crap in this movie. And, really, does everything need to be filmed in a Blue filter and have constant lens flares? And what about the green alien Kirk was making out with? Was the actress dipped in green food coloring?
But it did have Bruce Greenwood.
If one was to take this movie and remove the name Star Trek what would be left is a “B” Science Fiction film shown on late night cable TV. There is nothing groundbreaking. There was no new aspect of the characters that became evident to the viewers. The movie depended on the classic “crutch” used by sci-fi writers that cannot tie things together – time travel – and there was no really desire to move the Star Trek story forward. There is NOTHING in this movie that makes you, the viewer, car about what is going on other than the name Star Trek.
In many ways it was as if JJ Abrams was involved in some masturbatory “look how good I think I am” fantasy all over the childhood memories of every science fiction fan. He didn’t recreate Star Trek; he killed in and replaced it with everything that is wrong about Hollywood today.
Simply put, on a stand alone basis, this movie would not survive. Adding the name Star Trek to it doesn’t help make it quality or a Star Trek movie.
…though it did have Bruce Greenwood.
Overall rating: 2.5/10
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