The New Star Trek is Pretty Awesome

Star Trek – 8/10 – Saw a screening last night (that’s right, instead of watching Caps/Rags game 7. Thank you DVR!)

Anyway, it is the quintessential popcorn movie. Lots of action, lots of flashy effects, a decent enough story, a lot of humor thrown in for good measure. you definitely don’t need to be a Trek fan to enjoy it. And that’s totally what they’re going for. It’s a reboot of the original series, and without getting too spoilery, it also maintains continuity with the original series. The way they handle it is actually pretty cool… it’s not just a reboot within the context of a famous media franchise, but also within the context of the Trek universe itself.

The movie revels in being an “origin” story, of sorts, and uses every opportunity it can to wink, nod and nudge references from the original series at the viewer. The movie is loaded with them, and being a Trek fan of some regularity, I picked up as many as I could, but I’m positive I missed a bunch.

There were some issues I had with the movie. I’ve never liked the Michael-Bayesque method of constantly frenetic pacing and filming that Trek ascribed to but I can understand the choice they made in using that style. I’m just not a fan. Also, unfortunately, Eric Bana’s evil Romulan bad guy role is bland and forgettable, which is also understandable since this movie is more about “getting the new band back together” than any one specific threat.

Chalk that stuff up to new franchise growing pains.

Everything is updated and redesigned. The film looks REALLY slick. The dude that plays Kirk is really good. Quinto is really good. Pegg steals the movie. I left the theater wanting sequels NOW. I’m very excited about this franchise’s future. But above all, it’s a great popcorn movie.