Review of Star Trek (2009) by Trevor T — 11 Feb 2014

Re-watching this on DVD for the first time since I saw it on cinema release, it felt of a piece with its sequel in all the ways it should. It's an origins story that reboots the whole Star Trek universe - we see the birth of Jim Kirk, him and everyone else enrolling in Starfleet Academy and the origins of their finding themselves on-board the Enterprise for life. It, like the sequel, is a joyride of a film; at pains to point how far its come from the cheap TV original with every swoop and swish and dash of lens flare (which is slightly less annoying than its omnipresence in the 2nd movie).

This is an action movie, not just a TV franchise now, so we have bigger set-pieces and buddy moments of a type we might not have expected: a Bond style skydive, a slightly irritating Spock/Kirk bromance and beefed up roles for bit-part players from the TV show. The effects sparkle, the sequences with Leonard Nimoy are a joy as opposed to what could have been horribly self-indulgent, and it all goes to show that J J Abrams really is the natural inheritor to Spielberg's crown as cinema's great entertainer.