Review: Star Trek

Review: Star Trek

Rating: ****

Nonna's Rating: $$$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Those of you who know me will probably be disposed toward discounting my hyperbolic praise of this movie. After all, I do have a home office with Trek action figures on the walls. And, yes, I have been-- and always shall be -- a Trekker

But WOW! I kept realizing my mouth was hanging open during every exciting sequence in the movie -- and there were plenty of them. And I was with two friends who are not Trek fans, but they truly enjoyed the film.

Refreshing the franchise by playing with time travel and the timeline, J. J. Abrams, the director, manages to satisfy both viewers new to the series and those of us intimately familiar with the details of five separate television series and ten (I think) movies. Who among Trekkers didn't delight in Kirk besting the Kobayashi Maru scenario? (If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry. You don't have to know.)

The new (old) Enterprise crew manages to capture the idiosyncrasies of the original actors without becoming a trite parody. Zachary Quinto as Spock is particularly adept at conveying a Spock a bit green behind the ears -- if not his blood. There are new layers of complexity and a fascinating backstory here. Chris Pine as Kirk is even more impetuous than Shatner as the young captain. The predictably awkward beginnings of his storied bromance with Spock are handled with aplomb. Both characters grow and learn in this installment -- the first, I'm sure, of several.

See it on the big screen. Going to warp has never been so marvelously gut wrenching.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it