Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood; Director: J.J. Abrams; Producers: J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof; Screenwriters: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman; Music: Michael Giacchino; Editor: Maryann Brandon, Mary Jo Markey; Genre: ; Cinematography: Daniel Mindel; Distributor: Paramount Pictures; Location: Bakersfield, California, USA; Running Time: 126 min;Technical Assessment: 3
Moral Assessment: 3
CINEMA Rating: For viewers 14 and above
It’s the 23rd century. The spaceship helmed by Capt. Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) is under attack by the formidable Narada spaceship under Capt. Nero (Eric Bana). Pike’s son, James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) is about to be born as his mother is being evacuated from the besieged ship. As a young boy, Kirk is shown maniacally driving (without license, of course) a car to the Grand Canyon, outspeeding a flying traffic cop and almost plunging to his death. He climbs up the ledge, hardly unnerved. He is suspended by the Academy for a few years and in due time smuggled into the starship Enterprise. Here he continues to swagger around, gets the hots for the sultry but sensible Uhura (Zoe Saldana), and soon after appoints himself as Captain after his nearly fatal encounter with Spock (Zachary Quinto). Kirk gets the ship, but Spock wins his woman, so who’s the real winner? That is not resolved until Kirk and Spock put their heads together to save their ship from Nero the destroyer.
This 27-year old Star Trek series has many fans younger than itself. That’s because its producers have learned to adapt so that Star Trek may evolve and keep up with the times. You’ll like this 11th Start Trek movie, too, if you’re young at heart, which means even as a Senior Citizen card holder you’re still open to such things as warps, starships, time travel and black hole idiosyncracies. You’re also young at heart if you think movies are fun and do not bleed yourself dry looking for logic at every turn. Star Trek tries to strike a balance between then and now, old and new, courtly and cool. Pine as Kirk the hero is reminiscent of the 50s’ James Dean, a rabble-rouser without a cause; Quinto as Spock the other hero resurrects the refined and principled gentleman that girls fall for. Star Trek supports its story with a nifty script and good character development, and tries to inject a little naughtiness and humor in order to be more palatable at the box office.
What lessons may be learned from a movie with characters evocative of Noah’s Ark but using starships? One, Star Trek science is not to be taken as plausible—you’ll flunk Science class if you believe in it. Two, recognize the implausible and the impossible as entertainment—for instance, enjoy the sight of the spaceship Narada emerging from the Black Hole looking like a mutated cockroach magnified a quintillion times—harmless in spite of its size. Three, to win a woman, it’s better for a man to have gentle manners than cockiness and a strong libido. Four, no matter where humans find themselves in time and space, man-woman love will live on in the human heart, as the song “As Time Goes By” says, “You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss…” Five, in times of danger, even spacewalkers still call on God—as when Capt. Pike utters upon seeing the the “giant cockroach” Narada threatening his spaceship: “Oh my God….!”
