Star Trek (2009): A Safe But Effective Reboot

J.J. Abrams's first effort to reboot the Star Trek franchise reminds me of Transformers, and by some miracle, that's a compliment. This legacy sequel is at its best when marrying industrial futurism to grounded and humanist themes and a down-to-earth saloon or two, and it puts Michael Bay’s functionally similar but hopelessly childish wet dream to shame. I'll admit that it can sometimes be under-ambitious and hyperactive, but its likable cast and capable themes are the gas in its tank. It features all of the characters that we grew up with, characters like Kirk, Spock, and Uhura, but this time around, it gives them expanded personalities that turn them from fond memories into real people with very real fears, hopes, dreams, and loves. It sometimes loses itself in the blinding lights of its own spectacle, but every time it comes back around to what - or who - it's really about, it pays homage to its higher goals rather than treating these ideas as disposable filler.

To be fair to the movie, viewing such an impressive spectacle as nothing more than padding would be anything but reasonable. The complex but brutal Romulan captain known as Nero is out for blood. Entire worlds are paying the price for the wrongs he believes were committed against him, and the Starship Enterprise's mission to investigate the aftermath of his galactic rampage gets complicated as the extent of his grief and madness is laid bare. Star Trek is big, and can be both too much and not enough. Its all-too-large scale and love for nostalgic fan service are marks against it, but it works in spite of them, eventually finding a strong footing on the sturdy rock of its likable cast and their surprising humanity.

Unlike movies in the vein of Transformers, the deeper goals of Star Trek all center on the lives and loves of its heroes, lovable and fresh-faced reimaginings of the immediately recognizable Starfleet crew. Though they sometimes get lost in the sheer scale of their own movie, their amusingly silly and deadly serious banter makes them ridiculously likable. Simon Pegg's Scotty, though he only appears briefly in the movie's latter half, is an absolutely delightful standout whose larger-than-life performance teeters on the edge of parody without falling into it. He's a little embittered, yet still manages to lighten the few but precious scenes he's in with his strikingly Scottish accent and cutting wit.

On the level of the story, it’s not the most ambitious one that’s ever been told, and that's fine. The movie is trying to reintroduce its familiar-enough IP to a new generation while sprinkling in references that long-time fans of the franchise will recognize, too. It's fan service with an occasionally overdone visual style, which isn’t all bad, part of a recently bygone era of Hollywood when filmmakers were less concerned with realism and visual authenticity. I'm not very old, but I can still tell that this movie is a product of its time, which, though not necessarily a mark against it, is rather overstimulating when Star Trek tries just a little too hard to be epic. The likable irony lies in that it sometimes is. 

The biggest problem I have with this movie is the overbaked computer graphics it uses to sell tickets, graphics that are at their best when they practice a level of begrudging restraint. Star Trek feels big and important despite its best efforts to numb us to its own allure, though it benefits most from the brief moments when it isn't trying to be grand. These pockets of quiet give the movie a duality that makes its epic parts feel just that much more so. I’ll admit the contrast isn’t always evident here. That’s why I thought seeing it in action was pretty neat whenever it was.

Some of the action scenes in this movie become an issue when they don’t linger on shots long enough. The visuals themselves can be hit or miss, working well when grounded but becoming messy when they veer off into alien abstraction. The industrial habits of humanity produce the opposite effect, forming seas of grubby pipelines and dirty cranes that make up a human shipyard that looks real and lived-in despite being a computer-generated setpiece in a science fiction film. As long as Star Trek leans more towards its grounded elements that mesh country bars and The Jetsons, it doesn't just avoid its few problems: it thrives. 

It picks up a head of steam in its second half, once its characters and the deeply held fears they can't bear to say out loud come full circle. It is essentially two movies, a weaker initial one that must exist to justify the enhanced depth of the second. It is at its best when its very different characters are forced to reconcile their differences, because no matter whose side you pick in their petty bickering, none of them are outright unlikable. It may occasionally lack originality, but Star Trek cooks up a heart-pounding crisis for all our heroes to solve, then throws it at them in hopes of deepening their connections to each other and, by extension, their connections to us.

This movie sometimes tries to do both too much and too little, but when it reins in its less desirable tendencies, it soars. It's not exactly creative, but it pulls all the old tricks a franchise fan could ever want out of its bag, reminding us why the best part of a movie is so often the people in it rather than the incredible things that happen around or even to them. I can’t say it does anything particularly exciting with the lore of the franchise, because it doesn’t. But what I will say is that Star Trek is more involving here than it ever has been before, and that it lands the same trick we’ve come to expect of it with a flair that proves that an old dog can sometimes do new tricks better than the young ones can.

Star Trek (2009) - 8/10

Proverbs 18:19