Movie Review - Star Trek

Bad Robot productions? said my movie companion. Yes, where had I seen that before? As the opening of Star Trek streaked past at lightening pace, the question got lost. Afterwards, I remembered it's a J.J.Abrams production company, the same man that brought us Felicity, Alias, Lost, Mission Impossible 3, and Cloverfield (which I enjoyed, though many people have said otherwise, for it's highly limited and cinematically experimental point of view).

I wasn't surprised to see Abrams named as the director for this latest Star Trek movie. It was fast paced, plot-driven, and, cinematography-wise, stunning. He casted contemporary and familiar actors, not mega-star types that would muddy the screen with images of their past films they would unwittingly carry over, but young working actors that are in the public eye from peripheral successes. Take for instance Harold (or John Cho) from Harold and Kumar as Sulu, or Anton Yelchin from the well marketed but terribly made movie Charlie Barlett (a Ferris Bueller wannbe) playing Chekov, or Sylar from Heroes playing Spock--an impressive feat of persuasion and chance-taking by Abrams, I thought. But then again, he knows that people love familiarity.

He also had simple, simple-to-the-point-of-ironic, humour in the film which hasn't always been successful or easy in other Star Trek movies. For instance, after the young Kirk drives his mother's boyfriend's (?) car over a cliff, the pursuing police officer points stoically, with an amusing lack of expression due to his robotic face, and says--what else could he say?--"What is your name, citizen?" Or when Sulu turns to Kirk when asked what sort of hand-to-hand combat training he's had and says, "Fencing." Or when Spock returns to the deck calm and ready to serve after a revealing heart-to-heart with his father, and Kirk say something like, "You see. I knew you'd come around," giving Spock a clap on the shoulder that made full use of the Dolby digital surround sound of the theatre. So cliche and yet I rubbed my arm wryly on Spock's behalf.

Never mind the humour. The key observation to make about J.J.Abrams' series or films is this: he's a story teller and he tells it fast. And he uses young actors on the rise to tell it. It's what keeps people on the edge of their seats. It's not just the story that seems to be leaping over an edge, but everyone on screen seems to be excited and ready to make the leap with him. He's got the American-underdog-slash-prodigal-son story line delivered by American-underdog-just-coming-into-the-spotlight actors. Sure, he's formulaic, but Abrams has shown himself to be a master wielder of equations, coming up with imaginative variations on old and tried themes over and over again. This is his genius.

If you think following a formula is for hacks and half-wits, try hacking a romantic novel with its strict rules on content and narrative arcs. It's hard as Fabio's butt. The difficulty lies in not ever becoming ironic or blank-brained faced with the rigid frames of the genre: you can never make fun of it and you must be just imaginative enough but never literary/unfamiliar.

Now, I noticed that even Abrams could not resist a little poking fun in the end: he had Kirk strut onto the commanding deck in the final scene and gave us that full frontal "look at this!" shot of him sitting effetely prissily cross-legged like William Shatner. But they were gentle pokes, digs the audience was primed to chuckle along with because the rest of the movie was so magnificently cozily familiar.

Overall, a two enthusiastic thumbs up, the best Sci-Fi film of the year. So far.

In the running: Transformers and G.I. Joe coming soon this summer.