Hubmovies Review: Star Trek (2009)

With the inevitable reboot of an aging Star Trek franchise, J.J Abrams seems to have succeeded in reaching out to an audience not raised on the operatic voyages of the original Enterprise and her iconic crew. Admittedly, I felt a little guilty when writing this review as I had never really been a true ‘Trekkie’. To put it into a way Star Trek fans will understand, I was brought up in a time when there was no war with the Klingons, and the biggest threat was from some ‘Swedish’ cybernetic beings from the other side of the galaxy. But I digress, and I was nevertheless impressed by the latest big-budget excursion into the world of transporters, warp drive and scheming Romulans.

The plot involves a vengeful Romulan captain named Nero (Eric Bana), who has inadvertently travelled back in time from when his home planet was destroyed by an immensely powerful supernova (which he blames on Spock and the Federation for a slightly less than justifiable reason). He has arrived in the time period immediately preceding the construction of the original starship Enterprise and is determined to take revenge with his gigantic vessel, the Narada, and the dreaded ‘Red Matter’, which creates black holes. From that description, you can definitely expect some impressive special effects and fantastically detailed space battles.

So how well does the crew of the Enterprise fill their boots when dealing with this mortal threat? I get the impression that Abrams had somewhat of an easier job when trying to portray the main characters in the crew, with Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), McCoy (Karl Urban), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Sulu (John Cho), Scotty (Simon Pegg) and Chekov (Antony Yelchin). After all, there have been some 79 episodes for them to base their characters on! There are decent performances all round, and they perfectly convey the youthful optimism of a first mission.

To truly enjoy this film, one must put aside any notions of scientific accuracy (using black holes for time travel?) and appreciate the effort that has gone into making the film approachable by everyone. There is no need to be familiar with the Star Trek universe, and there are enough epic battles, violence and wit to destroy some misconceptions of those who imagine Star Trek to be just the pursuit of some pasty-faced nerds. For that reason alone, job well done.