Like The Last Man In Line At A Gang Bang...

Star Trek(2009)directed by J.J Abrams

Like the last man in line at a gang bang, you know all the good stuff has long been had, but you've already been waiting in line so long, you might as well take the plunge. That's what watching this 11th Star Trek is like, it boldly goes where everyone has been before.It's starts off way to fast, before we know who anyone is, they are exploding. Then we are introduced to them, in basically a montage of bar fights, bullies, and hot green girls in their underwear. Then things go astray, and it's not like the Star Trek we remembered. Spock is in charge. And Kirk is kicked off the ship. Then and cover your eyes for spoilers hereafter: Lenord Nimoy shows up as future Spock, saying the worlds been turned awry because of a Supernova, and now they occupy an alternate universe. But not so alternate that things can't come back together to resemble the team and universe we are comfortable with. But which one is that again? Who are the Federation? Romulan? Vulcan? Anyone?

For an origin film its not very interested in conveying any sense of a universe. I never really watched Star Trek, I have vague childhood recollections of some movie where they travel in time to save whales in San Francisco, and another of that guy from Reading Rainbow who had the Cyclops glasses, but I know the basic story, enough to fill in a few, I was with, who had no idea. But this film gave them no chance of point of entry, into understanding where we were, otherwise. The actors were all decent mimicking their earlier or I guess alternate universe incarnations, Bana looked like Nimoy, Simon Pegg was funny, etc. I guess I was expecting more suspenseful, exotic alien landscapes; "Lost" but in space, and I got "Mission Impossible 3" in the future. This is the franchise's 11th film, with only 7 years since the last one. Instead laying new ground this slightly tweaks the old, and then makes the plot about how the whole universe is a slight tweak of the old. A remake film, about a remake universe. But aside from the characters saying that, you wouldn't notice, by the end, it looks like the remake we would have expected, with the whole classic team assembled. Like rearranging the furniture for a few minutes, and then deciding you liked it better the first way. So by the end no harm no foul, right. Nothing really amounted to anything. The bad guy wasn't really bad just misguided, but dead regardless. No unique imagery developed here, just more of the old show retro designs(which I actually enjoyed, especially the green girl), and other sf movies like "Star Wars", with it's Snow Planet and creatures. I had high hopes for this, cus I think it's a concept with a lot of potential, just none of it was here. Too bad.