Star Trek (2009)

The young Kirk scenes are worse than the redesigned Klingons on Discovery. The conversation with Uhura is not family-friendly and the brutal bar scene makes no sense in the context of Roddenberry's creation. The inexcusable content of the movie exists beside an occasionally fascinating Trek reboot, with excellent portrayals of McCoy, Scotty, Spock and Chekov in particular. The lens flares are distracting but sometimes work. The white busy bridge and brewery engine room alienated me. Nimoy looks very sick and his lines are a bit stiff, but it's great to see him. Pike is excellent but gets no scenes worthy of the actor. Nero and the Romulans are the dumbest and most boring Trek villains since the old TOS hippies episode. And Star Trek is not a comedy. But with all that's wrong with this movie, great talents pull off some unforgettable scenes. McCoy meeting Kirk is genuinely funny and touching. Karl Urban brings his love of the character to the role and at times it's heartbreaking to see how he...IS McCoy. So here you have a gamble on turning Star Trek into a stupid action comedy--but the very essence of Trek combined with the exceptional cast and breathless director overpowers all the LCD fodder to somehow start a "Kelvin Universe" alternate Trek. Two vastly superior sequels followed: the dark, clever, subversive Into Darkness and the warm, enjoyable and adventurous Star Trek Beyond. Now, Discovery is showing us the spirit of Trek in a serialized show with constant surprises and complicated characters. The movies got the Trek name back out there...but I hope the next movie will be set in the Prime Universe, with appearances from our 24th century favorites.

I was nervous about Star Trek (2009) in the months and weeks leading up to the film. The thought of recasting all of these iconic characters gave me great concern. The actors selected for the key roles in this film were careful to honour the roles given to them, without it becoming a mockery or a farce of the original. Probably the best actor and most under appreciated in the film is Karl Urban, who played Leonard McCoy. Urban played the role with homage to Deforrest Kelley. Kelley was the actor who played McCoy in the original television series and early feature films. I felt that Urban was almost channeling Kelley at several points in the film, however he still made the role his own. This was really true of the all the cast and is probably as much a credit to the film maker J. J. Abrams as it is the actors. You could see how this could easily have turned into a Star Trek joke of sorts, had the actors over portrayed these characters that are so well known - overplaying to the point or ridicule. But they didn't. They were true to their roles without it becoming a series of stereotype scenes for each character. Well done.

This is a fun film. Easily accessible for everyone, great performances, great action, and it's a joy to see one of my favorite universes have some life breathed into it. This film is worth just about everyone's time. That being said my fanboy side cleaves off one star on this review. If you enjoy listening to needless negative criticism about a great film, continue reading. The villain in this film is relatively weak. Sure he has great presence on screen but i just don't understand the manufactured anger. I see what they are trying to do with Nero, but his emotions do not feel believable with barely any on screen context. Waiting 25 years in space, essentially floating out there waiting for Spock, seems a bit like a loose end to me. If they could have found a way to flesh out a little more of a psychological break on screen, the film would have been better for it. Instead we are left wondering just what it was that he had been doing out there for 25 years. BUT HE'S MAD. I also do not particularly enjoy explaining complicated time travel to people. This movie causes me to do this. Say the words "parallel universe" and watch the eyes glaze over.