I'm not a trekkie. I remember watching the original "Star Trek" series (in reruns), and enjoying the show, but at that age I liked to watch almost anything on television. Yet "Star Trek" remained in my memory as a unique show of television. I did not like the slew of spin-off series that followed the original in later years. No Captain Kirk? No Spock? No point. And here we are with a movie that has a whole new gang, same as the old gang. But guess what? They pulled it off.
Chris Pine plays William Shatner's Captain Kirk, and he achieves the near impossible by channeling Shatner's pitched braggadocio without going over the top. Zachary Quinto's Spock was perfect. Various actors portraying Spock's Vulcan race, have been boring examples of what is presented as an almost emotionless race. Quinto is brilliant in that he hints at the highly controlled emotion just underneath the surface, especially in that his is a young Spock, having all the more difficulty in dealing with his half human self. Hats off to the director J.J. Abrams also, for keying in on that aspect of Spock. Abrams directing is superb, dynamic, but very little of the "shaky cam" effect that directors have taken to recently to try and impart the feeling of intense action. Instead he moves the storyline along quickly capturing action, but letting the details of both character and spectacular cinematography have their moments.
Directing aside, as good as it was, it was the characters that made the movie work. The casting director not only did an amazing job filling the iconic roles with young actors who could pull them off, but somehow found actors that could generate a similar chemistry to that of which I believed was impossible to recreate. That is the chemistry between the characters Kirk, Spock, and Bones (played brilliantly by Karl Urban). The core three, as I call them, are what made the old Star Trek special, and now the new one. Probably not quite the same, but eerily similar. Plot wise, there were some holes, but nothing that took away from a great movie experience. I'm looking forward to the next trek. Four out of five garlics.
