Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek
"On the day of James Kirk's birth, his father dies on his ship in a last stand against a mysterious alien vessel. Twenty years later, Kirk has grown into a young troublemaker inspired by Capt. Christopher Pike to fulfill his potential in Starfleet even as he annoys his instructors like young Lt. Spock. Suddenly, there is an emergency at Vulcan and the newly commissioned USS Enterprise is crewed with promising cadets like Nyota Uhura, Hikaru Sulu, Pavel Chekov and even Kirk himself thanks to Leonard McCoy's medical trickery. Together, this crew will have an adventure in the final frontier where the old legend is altered forever even as the new version of it is just beginning."

5 stars

When I saw the preview for Star Trek in theaters last year, I was with Colin. They showed this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Subdp7dnlZ0 When the cop asks the boy his name, and he answers with "James Tiberius Kirk!", I yelled "YEAH!" and even did a fist pump. In the middle of the movie theater.

Colin has accused me of being a closet Trekkie. I'm not - I'm just a pop culture junkie. Yeah, I know a bit of the background of Star Trek. I got most of the 'in-jokes' in the movie. But I know just as much about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the X-Men, and Batman.

The first time I saw the movie, I went with my dad. He's the exact right age for growing up with the Star Trek TV series. He's known to get easily choked up at movies, and there was a tear in his eye when we get the shot with the entire crew all together for the first time. I was a bit verklempt myself.

Do you need to be a Trekkie to enjoy this movie? Not at all. Will some of the jokes, sight gags, and famous lines slip by you unnoticed? Probably, but that won't affect your movie experience. This is simply a great sci-fi action movie. And with J. J. Abrams directing, it's also a cool sci-fi action movie. The special effects are excellent, especially when you compare to what Gene Rodenberry had to work with back in 1966. And it's less computer-generated than you might think. The lens flares are flashlights being shined into camera lenses, and the parachuting scene was filmed by the actors standing on a mirror that reflected the sky. The action scenes (and there are plenty, even before the opening credits) will keep you on the edge of your seat - Kirk seems to have a knack for almost falling to his death. That's another bonus (in my eyes) of revamping a well-known story: you know none of your favorite characters are going to die. Unless they are wearing a red shirt, of course. 

My favorite part of the whole movie is that J. J. Abrams handled the time-travel element quite well. And now he has introduced the concept of an alternate Star Trek reality, he can get away with diverging from the canon in the future. And I'm looking forward to many, many sequels.

I will end with my only nitpick: Winona Ryder as Spock's mother?! What, you couldn't get an actual 60-year-old woman to play the part of an old lady?