Trekkin'!

Of course, nerd that I am, I had to see the new Star Trek movie this afternoon. I've been ambivalent about it -- director J. J. Abrams is a TV guy, through and through, and all but one of the Trek movies focusing on the Next Generation cast have been TV episodes writ large, to their detriment. On the other hand, a reboot could energize the franchise. I don't have a real review -- people who intend to see this movie will see it and people who don't won't, without much reference to what I think or even what a real life critic who gets paid to spout off thinks. Just some thoughts about the experience:

1) Karl Urban is fantastic as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy. The irascible DeForest Kelley created one of the most human characters in the original show by playing the good doctor, and Urban know how to follow that path in his own way.

2) Zachary Quinto works as Spock -- in some ways, the most iconic character of the franchise, the one that even people who know nothing about the show know something about. Quinto doesn't imitate Leonard Nimoy, who created the role, but he obviously studied and learned from Nimoy's work.

3) The new Enterprise is ugly. Graceful engine nacelles are now lumpy, looking like someone put a too-tall spoiler on a sleek sports car. Too many interiors are now gloomy and industrial-looking, something that's kind of hard to accept on a ship that's supposed to be brand new.

4) Simon Pegg is funny as Scotty, but so what?

5) Chris Pine is the entire reason this movie was derided as "Star Trek 90210" when clips and pictures began to be released, with good reason. He's generic, bland and seems to have spent more time watching Han Solo than William Shatner. Shatner had a magical combination of ham and talent that let him create a character at the same time he was chewing more scenery than the Master Thespian. I found myself wishing the actor who plays James' father was the one actually playing the lead role, and he had about three minutes of screen time to establish himself.

6) Abrams' TV-ness is all over the film, full of close-ups , jumpy cuts and small-frame vision. The script has more holes than story, and borrows from better than a half-dozen sci-fi blockbusters of the last 30 years. It has scenes that waste time do nothing for the story or the characters. The link to the original series is effective mostly as a stick jammed into the spokes of a wheel; the movie takes a long time to get moving again when it happens.

7) Previews are often chosen based on the idea that the audience will be seeing movies similar in some ways to the feature presentation. Based on the previews at the theater I chose, Hollywood expects a lot of really dumb moviegoers this summer. I can't say, based on the previews, which one of Will Farrell's Land of the Lost, Jack Black's Year One or the Transformers sequel will be the stupidest, but I can say that I won't waste any time finding out.

If it had been either a complete re-boot, a la Batman Begins, or if the original TV series had never existed, Star Trek would have been an excellent summer kick-off. But as it is, we've got a not-that-bad start that I don't think is going to spawn any lasting memories. If it earns a sequel, maybe Pine will be able to add a little gravity and presence to his version of James T. Kirk, and Abrams can both start to think with a big-screen pallette and use writers who think with movie minds as well. There's reason to hope so, anyway.