Star Trek (2009)


Boldly going where no Trek has gone before.

Well, what else can I say that all the countless other glowing reviews of J.J. Abrams' re-imagined, re-booted Star Trek movie haven't already said? Well, not much aside from the usual, I guess- the new cast of actors assigned to playing the iconic crew members of the U.S.S. Starship Enterprise are pretty much pitch-perfect, with Karl Urban's Leonard McCoy and Zachary Quinto's Spock looking eerily like cloned younger versions of their previous performers. Chris Pine extricates himself from the bonds of immortal William Shatner by not even attempting to mimic his predecessor, but still succeeds in projecting the Trek's brash, eternal hero with a double shot of hormones and testosterone. It's a complex tale of Time Travel and Alternate Realities which pits the neophyte Trekkers against a revenge-mad Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana) bent on rewriting history one planet at a time.

Performances aside, the special effects are spectacular, with energetic space battles and action occuring in space, in starships, on-planet. Abrams conveys lots of emotion through music and frenetic images which gloriously never devolve into the horrid handicam nonsense of Cloverfield. I felt chills go down my spine in the first few minutes of this film, with a hero's birth juxtaposed in the fires of a deadly attack- pretty much sums up the whole saga of this movie. In any case, that was a good sign that this was going to be a thrill ride, and it was. As an Abrams show, this has its share of wit, snappy dialogue, sexiness, hard-hitting action and quite a lot of humor in between the phaser blasts, transporter beams and collapsing stars. They just took the original premise, the established characters and just. went. wild. Die-hard, purist Trekkies may bristle, but this is just brilliant. THIS is how you re-invigorate a franchise. Or, in this case, re-energize.

Star Trek is out in theaters all over the Federa- er, Metro Manila. Bring together your away team and see this one, all speed!