Star Trek
Directed by J J Abrams (2009)
If there’s a more fundamentally enjoyable two hours to be had in a cinema this year than Star Trek at the IMAX then I’ll be very surprised.
The first thing to say (I suppose) is that I’m no ‘Trekkie’ — I think I could count the number of episodes of the original Star Trek series I’ve seen on one hand — so I was pleasantly surprised to find that this wasn’t an exercise in cheeky nods to the original: at least, if it was, I didn’t notice. I was probably too busy grinning like an idiot at the myriad explosions, witticisms, fights, chases and raised Vulcan eyebrows….
The second thing to say is that Star Trek is one hell of a fun film. As a former astrophysicist, storylines attempting to shoehorn in parallel universes or time travel tend to annoy the hell out of me, but I thought the film’s pseudoscientific devices were very cleverly employed to say the least (and I can’t say more about that without giving things away). The cast were absolutely splendid to a man/woman/alien — Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban as Spock and Bones respectively were particularly well cast — even Simon Pegg’s ropey Scottish accent was forgivable.
Hats off to Abrams, he’s rejuvenated an ailing franchise with a great deal of panache: but more importantly, he’s made a bloody good film that I’ll watch again.
