Today is
By: Ikedi Ani-okoye
"Star Trek" (my 8-10 rating: 9)
Director: J.J. Abrams
Screenplay: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, based on the Gene
Roddenberry characters
Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Anton Yelchin,
Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Simon Pegg.
Rating: PG-13 (brief sexual content, furious sci-fi battles)
Time: 2 hrs., 2 min. I'll flat out call the prequel "Star Trek" the most stupendous, breathtaking sci-fi spectacle ever. Some nit-picking is in order, to be sure, but everybody of all ages -- go for it! Yep, they're all there and they're all believable! And everything the beloved characters say and do in their younger years seems right and the spectacle has been ratcheted up to the current state of the art and a good deal beyond. Most impressive is the terrific attention shown to the scripting and directing levels to expanding on every sci-fi concept. This is a film that wants to be, and succeeds in being, enormous in scale in all astronomical vision. You surely will be forgiven if you find the exposition overly dense to decipher, so frenetically rapid is it thrown at you at a totally withering pace. Indeed, prepare yourself: from the opening moments that you are beyond all previous outer space spectacle and that you are in for something so big . . . oh, so big . . . that you may feel diminished in your dedication at finishing your popcorn. My complaint, depriving the film of straight-out 10? Oh, just that the hand-to-hand fist fights feel trivial and far, far outdated in a civilization so far in the future. And that the romance is unrevealing and the story, while honest and earnest, is unexpansive. After ten films on the immortal "Star Trek," five TV series, innumerable games and books, here's ever-knowing, Capt. James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine), an untrepid adventurous Iowa farm boy enamored by space travel, the half-human super-intellect Spock (Zachary Quinto) who grew up as a half-breed outcast on planet Vulcan where emotions have been regarded as pointless and destructive, the cynical, wisecracking ship Medical Officer McCoy (Karl Urban), Helmsman Sulu (John Cho), young Russian genius Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Communications Officer Uhuru (Zoe Saldana) and the inimitable Scotty (Simon Pegg). And for a significant piece, even 78-year-old Leonard Nimoy shows up as the original Spock. Where's it pick up from? From the death of Kirk's Starship commander father in a mighty blaze of heroism even as his son is being born on the ship at that very moment. The death was caused by the evil hand of the rogue Romulan Nero (Eric Bana) who believes that his own planet was obliterated by the Federation and that revenge is in order, namely erasing every planet in the Federation's domain. We are treated to the developing friendships of the key crewmembers aboard the just-launched Starship Enterprise. Here's combative Kirk goading and confronting the haughty Spock who'd
been the first to be accepted onto the starship. For the Enterprise maiden voyage there's our Kirk in the Captain's seat, which he's inherited quite by accident of fateful circumstances in a frenetic moment. The developing tension will include the ice planet
Delta Vega. Always out there plotting is the sleek and sporty Romulan ship awaiting the magnificently styled Enterprise. Onward we soar among the galaxies, the trillions of stars. How very evil is this Nero, decked with prosthetic make-up effects to make you hate him. And how beguiling is the obvious attraction between Spock and Uhuru, she inevitably getting him to recognize his self-repressed emotions. All the players are given dimension in their catchy personalities, yet the welcome male bonding between Kirk and Spock is well-realized. All the characters, in fact, are taken seriously, and all their functions given enormity. Yet the film's ultimate power is in its titanic momentum and scale. The stark indifference to the order of the galaxies to the foibles of humans and other space beings crashes down on you with spellbinding force. This film can take you over.
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