Well, last night I saw the new Star Trek movie.

The short review

Awesome…must see!

The full review

As a long time Star Trek fan, I knew it was going to be hard to be disappointed.  However, Star Trek has had some flops (can you say Star Trek V?), so I was not expecting to be blown out of the water.  I am happy to say the movie rocked!

I try to avoid opinions/reviews prior to movies; I prefer to be my own judge.  By accident, I overheard a conversation this week at PT’s Grille where a group was complaining about a bad performance by the young Captain Kirk.  After seeing the movie, I have to wonder what that PT’s lunch group was smoking when they said that.  Chris Pine’s performance as Jim Kirk was extraordinary.  As we are in the midst of a societal shift towards bigger government and rewarding incompetence and mediocrity, a character portraying a young leader cutting through beauracracy to excel (and save the world at the same time) is a refreshing and much needed change.  We urgently need more people that don’t wait for someone else to save them and go deal with problems themselves.

Of course, looking at Chris Pine’s resume, that may have been what is annoying the current pop culture generation; he is basically unknown.  And thank goodness for that!  I refuse to watch any more Hollywood movies that have Brad Pitt and/or Angelina Jolie, the least talented yet most popular actor and actress I have ever seen.  They deserve each other.

The young Dr. McCoy was spot on of the original Deforest Kelley version.  A few lines almost sounded like voice overs from the original it was so accurate.  I was rolling in the theater from his comments.  I recognized the face of the actor, but didn’t connect that he was played by Karl Urban until the credits.  That character was so different than his portrayals of the nemesis in Bourne Supremacy and Eomer in Lord of the Rings; yet all were well done.  Karl Urban has a bright future with those acting talents.  (He was also in the Chronicles of Riddick).

The young Spock, Checkov, Uhura, and Sulu all were well done.  The Uhura love interest was surprising, but hey, why not?  However, the crown jewel of the young characters was Scotty, played by Simon Pegg (whom I remember from the horror spoof, Shaun of the Dead).  He was funnier even than the original Scotty.  Of course, having some engineer geek in me, I have a soft spot.  In one scene, after he transports several people at the last second from certain death, he says “I just transported three people from two different places all on to the same pad.  That’s never been done before!”, but unfortunately, everyone wonders off not appreciating the full extent of Scotty’s wizardry.  I can relate

Special effects were excellent.  My only minor complaints were:

1. The phasers they were shooting were shooting energy bursts like a Star Wars Han Solo blaster.  All of Star Trek’s phasers in the past were long streams of energy.  Not that I am picky, but why the change?
2. What was up with the Romulan ship design?  It looks nothing like a ship from any other Star Trek episode or movie I have ever seen.  Cool, yes, but Romulan?

Hopefully, this movie signals the re-energizing of the Star Trek franchise.  I would love to see a sequel with these same characters, and I like the big budget of the movies to the smaller budgets of the older weekly series.

Bottom line…Trek fan or not, go see the movie!