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THE FOLLOWING IS A REPRINT OF THE REDBLOG REVIEW OF STAR TREK ON ITS THEATRICAL RELEASE. STAR TREK IS NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD THROUGH REDBOX.

Other redblog Trek pieces:

Erika Olson's Non-Trekkie Review of Star Trek

What We Talk About When We Talk About Star Trek — Locke reminiscences on what Trek has meant to him since childhood.

UPDATE: When I wrote this review last May, I was still somewhat tentatively circling J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot, soaking it all in, processing the new shininess. Since then I've come to flat-out, unequivocally love the new Trek film–it'll no doubt make it on my top 10 list for 2009.

If can you get past young Jimmy Kirk taking a '66 ‘Vette for a
23rd-century thrill ride while jamming to The Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage,”
then you should be okay with the rest of J.J. Abrams’ hyperactive, pop
explosion refit of the Star Trek franchise.

Sure, there’s a lot of energy-drink-fueled teen giddiness and slapstick to the proceedings—at times you’d think it was Stardate 90210. And while it’s true Old Trek
sometimes spent too much time sitting around talking, this new version
feels a like a kid on a sugar rush, running circles around the room
until you want to scream “Just STOP for a moment! Stand still and take a breath!”

But hey, I love me some Beasties, and overall, this is one helluva fun Trek–Star or otherwise. Maybe it’s a little too obsessed with hooking in younger, non-Trekkie viewers (product placement in a Trek
film feels a lot like billboards at Wrigley Field), but considering all
the hoops it has to jump through to get its origin story off the
ground… while pleasing both newbies and devotees… and while introducing a very young, fresh-faced cast playing pop-cultural icons… well, this is a fine, fine
start. One that not only leaves you breathlessly entertained, but giddy
with anticipation for where Abrams and his co-creators can go next now
that they have the hard part out of the way.

There is a plot—it involves Nero, a Romulan miner (Eric Bana) on an avenge-the-dead-wife mission (not the last shade of Khan
the new film offers up) that involves going back in time almost two
centuries and putting a serious hurt on the core systems in the budding
United Federation of Planets. (An entity I’m not sure is ever mentioned
in the film.)  Nero's first pounce comes just as Baby Kirk is being
born (in space, not Riverside, Iowa—although he'll grow up there and
the town still gets a nice shout out).

In what is a
surprisingly touching moment amid the chaos, baby Jimmy Kirk is named
and then left a fatherless rebel-to-be. (One critic noted that as the
shuttle carrying Momma Kirk and her newborn waif retreats from Nero’s
attack, it is literally the last time in his life James T. Kirk will
back away from anything.) The Romulan with the Tyson face
tattoo then pops back up 25 years later to continue his rampage,
rushing the newly commissioned Starfleet flagship Enterprise into action with a crew comprised almost solely of cadets. (More Khan echoes.)

All of this, however, is pretense. Star Trek’s true goal is two-sided: Get young James T. Kirk (Christopher Pine) into the captain’s chair of the Enterprise and get his friendship with his Academy rival, Spock, started.

The ship, its captain, and its first officer will become legendary in time, but Abrams’ Star Trek wields
a double-edged sword. The new film benefits from most of us already
knowing—directly or indirectly—who these characters are. But that
advantage cuts the other way as well, as comparisons to the original
actors and their hard-earned dynamic are inevitable.

To
everyone’s credit, they all hold their own nicely. Unlike the
woe-begotten Hayden Christensen, Pine hits the ground running on his
way to Movie Stardom—his lack of intimidation by the boots he needs to
fill perfectly echoes Kirk’s own reckless confidence. There are plenty
of times when Pine’s New Kirk comes off as an annoying jerk (the
infamous Kobayashi Maru test is sadly tossed off as a smug, cocky joke)
and his spastic womanizing feels more Van Wilder than Virile Leader.

But then you realize that’s the point. This is young Kirk, all impulse and swagger—he has 30 to 40 more years to season into the Kirk we last saw. Though it is
unfortunate the film almost completely skips over his years at
Starfleet Academy—Kirk appears to come out of the experience utterly
unchanged from the unfocused horndog he went in as. (And yep, he beds a
green-skinned Orion lass.)

Meanwhile Zachary Quinto has the doubly demanding job of taking over
the role of Mr. Spock. Not only does Spock require the expression of
emotion without actually expressing emotion, but Quinto has to do so
under the watchful, arched eyebrows of the character’s originator.

The Heroes
actor comes through perfectly. When Leonard Nimoy began playing Spock,
the character was little more than an exotic prop that the actor, over
the course of the next 25 years, developed into the soul of the
franchise. Right out of the blocks, Quinto’s Spock is more assertive
and yes, emotional (and sports more baby-face softness than Nimoy's
sharp angles). And in what may be the move that elicits the most
disapproving gasps from the Trekkies, he’s already getting his Vulcan
groove on.

The rest of the crew is solid. As Sulu, John Cho
gets to show off during a daring sword fight on a shaky mining
platform. And I’ve had an eye on Anton Yelchin since last year’s
underrated Charlie Bartlett—his Chekov functions mainly as one
long snicker about his youth and accent, but here’s hoping the exposure
gets the talented young actor a lot more work. (He’s also in Terminator: Salvation later this month.)

The
character getting the biggest upgrade in the new film is Uhura—no
longer just a lovely woman in a miniskirt and knee boots, she’s now a
lovely, intelligent, independent, assertive woman in a miniskirt and
knee boots. Zoe Saldana may have been placed here to give the marketing
department a hot chick to slap on the posters and to bring some steamy
sizzle to the mostly male cast, but she makes it clear Uhura is no
longer going to be content to sit at the counsel and read off subspace
transmissions.

If
Uhura steps up, someone has to step back, and that’s Simon Pegg’s
Montgomery Scott. Scotty shows up late in the frenetic proceedings to
function mostly as comic relief and a bit of plot mechanism. (The film
goes to great lengths to shuffle everyone around and then greater leaps
to shuffle—or beam—them back.) But Pegg's having a blast, and the
requisite Scotty Scene is so easily anticipated you'll find yourself
counting down the seconds until Kirk yells down to Engineering and
Scotty yells back.

Karl Urban makes the most of it as McCoy,
nailing the character to the extent he can with little to do. Acting as
the adult supervision on this ship of teenyboppers, the irritable
country doctor plays straight man to Kirk’s irrepressible womanizing
and lackadaisical ambition (we're not quite sure if Kirk wants to get
on the Enterprise because he craves action or another run at
Uhura–most likely both), but in this film we don’t yet see Bones
functioning as the captain’s humane conscience. He doesn’t even spar
much with Spock, though the script shoe-horns in most of his famous
quips.

In fact, Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman do that a lot—sticking in little Original Series bon mots
and Easter eggs for older fans. There’s even a Red Shirt, doing exactly
what Red Shirts have always done: showing the main characters what NOT to do.

Such
nods are a cute and inoffensive way to nab some cheap crowd-pleasing,
but I remain unimpressed by Abrams' handling of characters. My
suspicion is that he has trouble seeing them as much more than puzzle
pieces to be moved around in creation of mystery and spectacle. Star Trek
gets by thanks to the aforementioned nostalgia bump, but next time out
the film makers better get to work on giving their versions of the
characters new actions and attitudes that define them, rather than
borrowing from the nostalgia bin.

With all these youngsters
dashing about and trying to wreck Dad’s starship, it’s nice to have two
fine, experienced actors nudging them in the right direction. First up
is Bruce Greenwood as Captain Christopher Pike. It’s Pike who grabs
young Jim Kirk by the scruff of his drunken neck and says “shape up and
fly right”—his “what are you doing with your life?” lecture is one of
the films’ few quiet pleasures.

Picking
up where Pike leaves off is Prime Spock, or Old Spock. Nimoy gently
steps into the film acting as an anchor to the canonical franchise
continuity. But most of all, Nimoy brings all his dignity and grace to
bear on a task almost more important than saving the world: making sure
Young Kirk and Young Spock play nice and become the life-long friends
they are destined to be. More than just a gimmicky cameo, Nimoy’s Spock
gives the film its Gandalf (or Merlin or Obi-wan) while reminding us
how rich and deep run the traditions Abrams is now caretaking.

Sure
there are complaints to file with Starfleet Command. Starting with the
absence of any sort of time or attention paid to explain what Starfleet
is. As in the films and TV shows, you get the sense that Kirk and Spock’s Enterprise is the only ship in the entire fleet that can actually do any thing correctly—it is forever either the first ship on the scene or the last one standing.

And
yes, the film is stuffed to bursting with non-stop action. But Abrams,
like so many of his peers, needs to understand that action does not
automatically equal adventure. Kirk and Company do a lot in a
very short time, but there are times when you feel the film is just
piling it on in fear of leaving a single scene or moment un-goosed. The
Bond and Batman reboots took franchises that had become too silly and campy and toned and slowed them down. Abrams’ Star Trek
does the opposite, taking what had become a too-solemn, ponderous
affair and setting fire to the ready room table. Often teetering on the
edge of losing control, the film does hold it all together. But this is most definitely a summer movie first and a Star Trek movie second.

(At
one point, as Scotty finds himself flushed through the engine room’s
something or other tubes, you cannot help but think of Sigourney Weaver
in the delightful Star Trek tweak Galaxy Quest: “What ARE these things?!? Why are they HERE?!? They serve no purpose!!”… Though I admit it's nicely ironic to see Mr. Scott, who will come to know the Enterprise like the back of his hand, lost in what will soon be his engine room.)

And clearly space battles are not Abrams’ milieu. Star Trek
boasts stunning visual effects, but the director has no idea what to do
with them. There are a few nice moves here and there, a few glory
moments for the NCC-1701, but for the most part the film’s cosmic
dust-ups come off a bit static, lacking in majesty and deep-space
wonder and sweep. Add that to the “to-do” list for the sequel.

Poor
Eric Bana is just here as a set-‘em-up-knock-‘em-down patsy for Kirk
and Spock’s coming-out party. He has a fine, tragic villain’s tale, but
we hear it from a Vulcan mind meld instead of from him. In fact, Nero
doesn’t get to say much of anything. We gather from his catastrophic
actions that he has a serious rage on, but popping in as he does from
another time with an uncharacteristically tight lip for a space opera
villain, it’s hard to connect the madman to his motivations. Add that
to that the fact he has no personal vendetta against the Kirk-Spock
younglings and poor Nero is not much more than a plot device.

Nor
is Nero’s angry quest served well by Orci and Kurtzman's script. In
fact, most of the script is devised and twisted solely to get Kirk in
the driver’s seat, and that means going through some awkward and
painful plot contortions. (He’s on the ship, he’s off the ship, he’s hanging from the edge of something, he’s back on
the ship.) In the end, the two-fisted, never-back-down James Kirk must
assume his destiny by pulling some a cheap debate-team trick out of
Robert's Rules of Order.

Still, most of that carping and
nit-picking can be easily brushed aside for now. Once Kirk gets in the
chair, old Trekkers can’t help but feel a rush of sweet recognition—and
hopefully newcomers catch an inkling of just how much more there is to
come. An exercise in pure, near-perfect entertainment, Star Trek
keeps a dazzled grin on your face the whole way through. But for many
of us there is also the lasting glee, carrried outside the theater, at
having Trek back and knowing it will carry on in grand fashion.