I was never a Star Trek fan growing up. The only exposure I got to the popular sci-fi television show was through broadcasting classes in college. We spoke about how the show was very topical even though it was set in the future. Star Trek was actually poorly-rated in its infancy, but became a cult classic that really took off. On top of that, I grew up in a Star Wars family, watching the original trilogy over and over again. But after Star Trek Into Darkness, he may have well turned me from a Star Wars fan into a Trekkie. What J.J. Abrams has done is introduce Star Trek to brand new audiences who were either not alive to watch Gene Roddenberry’s show, or unwilling to go along with the camp of William Shatner. 2009’s Star Trek took me by surprise, combining great characters with amazing scenery and action, and all of the bars are risen here.
All the members of the Starship Enterprise are back for this installment, and in my opinion, everyone was entertaining. Chris Pine’s James Kirk is still the brash young captain, but is learning some new things as he matures, and he shows it with some great integrity. His crew is comprised of Uhura (multi-dimensional Zoe Saldana), Dr. Bones McCoy (Karl Urban), Scotty (hilarious Simon Pegg), and of course Sulu (John Cho, who had several entertaining scenes). There are others of course, and I could talk about all of them I’m sure, but that would probably take awhile because everyone did an awesome job, from being impactful, to funny, to completely believable. I didn’t feel like anyone was phoning it in.
Speaking of not phoning it in, two cast members rose above everyone else for me: Spock (Zachary Quinto) and of course the villain, a traitorous Starfleet soldier Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock). If you know anything about Star Trek, whether you watched the television show or just the first movie, Spock is basically a robot– emotionless, logical, and calculating. The amount of belief I had in his performance was astounding. He had so much concentration, and I wonder if it was difficult to act that cool the whole time. In all seriousness, he had a very well-rounded performance, and really stood out to me. Coupled with one of my new favorite actors Cumberbatch, who was intense, powerful, and bad-ass. His look, his voice, and his resolve was intimidating. And as you know, I really like my villains, and he definitely takes the cake of one of the coolest and best in recent memory.
So what about the direction and everything else? I thought the story was fantastic. It felt like an action movie, but it was far from cliche’. It was science fiction, but not drowning in unreadable vernacular. I felt like I could follow everything, and I saw it with someone who didn’t see the original Star Trek, and it was not over her head either. The effects were not nauseating (I did not see it in 3D), the action scenes were fun, there was suspense, drama, action, comedy, and basically everything else you could want. I could follow the action too, and never got lost in a “who is who?” situation. On top of that, it wasn’t just laser fight after laser fight. Fisticuffs, ship battles, and a great army versus army scrap populate the film, that is never boring from beginning to end. Every scene is entertaining in one way or another, so I cannot imagine that you will get tired of watching.
J.J. Abrams crafted a great story along with the writing team should be proud of not only appealing to Star Trek fans, but not alienating newcomers (no pun intended). And from what I have seen of people who have seen it already, everyone seems to agree! If this is how good Abrams can be with Star Trek, I can’t wait to see how he does with Star Wars: Episode VII. This is definitely my favorite film of 2013 so far, and while I know there is much to go, I just did not have this much fun watching Iron Man 3 or anything else, so that is saying something from a superhero fan.
Michael Night's Miscellany 