This Ain't Your Father's Star Trek!

Slick new director gives it his all with Kirk, Spock & the Enterprise

BY EMIL TIEDEMANN

Having never seen a single episode of any of the half-dozen Star Trek TV series or any of the ten previous films, I can spare you from all the plot inconsistancies and inaccuracies that the current reboot has pledged, but I'm sure you're more than fine with that! The most recent of the Star Trek motion pictures also happens to be the most acclaimed (a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes), the most profitable ($314 million as of today), and the most likely to convert any of the others who had yet to be acquainted with the iconic sci-fi franchise.

Sophomore director J.J. Abrams (Mission: Impossible III) picked up the pieces of Stuart Baird's ill-fated Nemesis (2002) feature and scrapped them for good, charging through with familiar characters in unfamiliar territory. Abrams was part of a tenacious team of "Trekkie" filmmakers who set out to revive a dying series some four years earlier, including co-producer Damon Lindelof (TV's Lost) and co-screenwriter Roberto Orci (Transformers). They delved back to the premiere television project that included characters like James T. Kirk (Smokin' Aces Chris Pine), Spock (Heroes' Zachary Quinto), Nyota Uhura (Vantage Point's Zoe Saldana), Scotty (Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg) and Leonard "Bones" McCoy (The Lord of the Ring's Karl Urban), and--for the first time--casted fresh faces for the esteemed venture.

Hollywood's newest pretty-boy Chris Pine puts on Captain Kirk's space suit and climbs aboard the eminent USS Enterprise to walk in his late father's shoes as the leader of the pack. Along for the ride is Spock, a cross-breed of human and Vulcan played immaculately by Zachary Quinto for most of the 127-minute epic, while the original Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy, puts on those pointy ears and returns for his final frontier. Throw in your indicative love triangle and an all-out war with a near-extinct species from the future, and you've got a potent cinematic formula that's bound to break new ground for an old tale.

Abrams is able to check off almost every possible theatrical highlight with his Trekkie inauguration...tantalizing locales? Check! Well-timed farce? Check! Engrossing characters? Check! He pulls this film together like so many others wouldn't be able to, sparking a renewed interest in Gene Roddenberry's pop cultural phenomenon. Coming from someone who previously couldn't be less interested in this niche-market franchise, I can't wait to see these actors reassemble for a second go-around of where no man (or woman) has gone before. In regards to this rebooted franchise, may it live long and prosper!

4/5 stars