Star Trek

Star Trek Review
The story begins with Captain George Kirk's ship, the USS Kelvin, being attacked by the Narada, a ship piloted by a race called the Romulans. While Captain George Kirk fends off the attack, shuttles leave the ship carrying his child, James Tiberius Kirk, and his wife. The USS Kelvin, however, is destroyed and Captain George Kirk perishes. James Kirk grows up to be different from his father. Although incredibly smart, the boy is reckless and foolish. In a bar fight, he meets Commander Pike tells the young Kirk of his father's brave exploits and convinces him to join Starfleet. Realizing that he might turn his life around, James Kirk accepts the invitation and starts his training as a cadet for the Federation, an interplanetary federal republic.

In three years, Kirk decides to take the Kobayashi Maru test for the third time. The test is unwinnable and its purpose is to merely test the choices taken by a potential captain rather than his skill in space combat. However, Kirk cheats the program by reprogramming the test and makes it winnable. His actions put him up for a trial. While at his trial, the Federation is warned that there is a distress call and many cadets are put into action. Since Kirk faces academic suspension, he is unable to board the ship to help, but he is smuggled onboard by his close friend who is a doctor aboard the USS Enterprise. Once aboard the Enterprise, Kirk meets Spock, a Vulcan who is first officer of the ship. They realize that the distress call was a trap devised by Romulans to capture the commander of the Enterprise in order to get details that would allow them to destroy Earth. Together, Spock and Kirk must set aside their differences and work together to save the USS Enterprise and Earth.

I came into the movie with high expectations after seeing a whopping 96% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes. Due to this I may have set my expectations too high. The movie didn't wow me at all, and while it was still a pretty decent film, there are many sci-fi flicks out there that blow this one out of the water.

The biggest reason I disliked the film was the convoluted storyline that makes no attempt to explain the back history of the Star Trek franchise. Having no previous experience with the series, there were several instances where I was completely confused about the storyline. I actually had to check Wikipedia after watching to figure out what exactly happened in certain segments of the movie. Furthermore the movie tried to add a time travel plot that only made the storyline even more illogical.

I did feel that the special effects and the realism of the futuristic technology was impressive. They did a great job on the ship designs especially in the interior of the ships. The sets were also very well designed, including the insides of the two main ships in the series (USS Enterprise and the Romulan ship). For a big-budget movie like Star Trek, I would expect no less.

The main character, Captain Kirk, is played by a young actor named Chris Pine. He just didn't have the experience necessary to really pull off the role. I thought the actor who played Spock portrayed his character a lot better by incorporating quirky mannerisms that really made the character unique. I'd also like to mention that John Cho has a pretty decent sized role in this movie, and he is not cast as the stereotypical Asian guy. His role could have been played by any race.

Overall I found this film to be mediocre. Perhaps Star Trek fans will really enjoy it? I know this film did get high ratings from a lot of places, but my personal opinion is that the movie is only so-so.

Written by Lance


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Star Trek Cast
Chris Pine as James T. Kirk
Zachary Quinto as Spock
Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime
Eric Bana as Nero
Bruce Greenwood as Pike
Karl Urban as Bones
Zoe Saldana as Uhura (as Zoë Saldana)
Simon Pegg as Montgomery Scott
John Cho as Sulu