I’ve finally got round to watching Star Trek. It was one of many films I wanted to watch on the big screen but never got round to. Fortunately for all, Altrincham Tesco’s ingenious DVD vending machine had it so accompanied by some pizza, some beer and my better half. That was Saturday night sorted.

Reinventing an existing franchise can be a double-edge sword. You already have a large existing fan base but get it wrong and the same fans turn nasty and will kill you. Ask people what’s wrong with the Star Wars prequels and the unanimous answer will be Jar Jar Binks. Accompanied by years of pent-up seething. Fortunately Star Trek has some strong names behind it, J J Abrams was phenomenally successful with Lost. Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are behind some of the most successful explosion-fests of the past 5 years, including The Island, Transformers 1 and 2, Eagle Eye, Watchmen and finally Mission Impossible III.

If you like explosions, this film is for you.

The plot revolves around a Romulan named Nero (Played by Eric Bana) from the future (the movie’s future that is) who travels back in time to destroy the Vulcan planet of Vulcan. This is because future Spock (Nimoy no less) was apparently responsible for the destruction of Romulus, in the future and Nero wants young Spock to feel the same pain he did 25 years ago, in the future. That’s one hell of a temporal axe to grind. Anyway, Enterprise captain Christopher Pike is kidnapped by Nero, when young Kirk and young Spock stop bickering long enough to realise something is amiss they set out to stop the tricky Romulan from destroying Earth, with some help from Future Spock, whom Kirk finds in a cave, and Scotty, who happens to be close by.

The Sun called it the best action film of 2009 and it’s definitely up there. There’s a whole lot of fighting going on, Actor Chris Pine brings a whole tin of whoop-ass to the role of James T Kirk, keeping in following with the character’s love of a good punch up. It’s always daunting taking on such an established character and trying to bring something new while still remaining faithful to the original. This film provides mixed results on this front. Pine is excellent as the young, angry unrefined smart-arse Kirk. Zachary Quinto’s young Spock has the character exploring not just his Vulcan ancestry but his human side. This adds an added depth to the role. As for Karl Urban’s Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, well we’ll come back to that later. Simon Pegg was superb as Scotty, my only complaint is that he has so little screen time.

Zoe Saldana’s Uhura and John Cho’s Sulu were a big let down for me, not in any way because of the actors, I’ve no complaints on that front but the characters themselves seemed really badly written. Sulu was written as a sword wielding badass. When he and Kirk space jump (skydiving from space) down to the Romulan drilling platform, he produces a collapsible Katana and engages in some samurai chopfoolery. I understand this looks good and is admittedly fun to watch but still left me scratching my head. Whenever I watched a scene with Uhura, all I saw was Jonesy from The Hunt For Red October. Except when she snogged Spock. At that point I didn’t know what I was watching.

All of this pales into insignificance compared to Karl Urban’s McCoy. Urban had clearly spent a long time studying the role and was a sheer joy to watch. Brilliantly cantankerous, he joins Starfleet after his wife divorces him leaving him with nothing. With the exception of Doom and the last two Rings films, I’ve not seen much of this Kiwi. He clearly took it, ran with it and made the role his own. The DVD extras should include a reel of all his best bits. I’m hoping they remake Voyage home just so I can watch Karl Urban shout at a whale. That could possibly be my cinematic highlight of the next few years.
With the exception of some gaping plot (worm)holes and some questionable character writing, I enjoyed the film far more than I expected. There’s a point where it all goes a bit Empire Strikes Back when Kirk goes to Hoth (Delta Vega), gets attacked by a crazy ice beast in a cave only to be rescued by Han Solo (Future Spock). Leonard Nimoy is a welcome face within the sea of young talent. I’d gladly watch this again and look forward to a sequel, maybe this time with Khan and a resurrected Kirk. Abrams has messed with the reality enough for that to be possible. Just please think about sealing the plot holes. The extensive DVD extras do address some these and also add some extra Klingon based fun.

I’ll leave you with a fact. Deep Roy (plays Scotty’s assistant) is the only actor to appear in the Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who franchises.

Karl Urban · Star Trek