p r e f e r r e d r e v i e w e r s :
 |
 |
|
You haven't selected any preferred reviewers. To learn more about customizing your experience, click here.
|
|
|
 |
 |
o t h e r r e v i e w e r s :
|
|
|
suminjoo [ 6.5 ]
[ add to preferred ]
[ email this review to a friend ]
Evidently, I didn't know my husband was a trekee. What this means is that he hid a material fact of himself before marrying me, about which I am not sure what I should do. Anyway, I had to go and watch the new Star Trek as he declared it s a "must-see" film.
I didn't know anything about Star Trek (for example, I didn't know James Kirk was supposed to be the captain of Enterprise), so it was more confusing than entertaining to me as I didn't understand a bit of what was going on...I don't think my hub liked it either because he was too much of a trekee to ignore the inaccuracies of the movie. In conclusion, it was an ok entertaining movie. I think it'll be the best for someone who knows enough about Star Trek but not enough to criticize the timelines and stuff.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DokBrowne [ 8.0 ]
[ add to preferred ]
[ email this review to a friend ]
Good show. With a few exceptions they respect the fan base and cleverly target a wider audience. The "Enterprise" crew works excellently with new actors filling in (Spock and Kirk are still engaging characters, and their crew still colorfully, appealingly cast), the sophistication of the dialogue still intact, the sense of adventure as grand as ever, attention to scientific detail in place (except for the whole black hole contrivance), the scope of the subject matter wonderfully emphasized (perhaps more so in than any other "Trek" movie, actually), special effects impeccable, and the obligatory reverence for and underlining of the franchise's complex history and iconic mythology quite satisfying.
True, via time travel they re-write big parts of the "Trek" universe back-story, which will frustrate fans to a degree, but it's a creative means of avoiding the usual origin-story prequel blues, namely the lack of suspense or consequence innate to these projects. You know they'll survive and turn out an exact way for all the future movies/shows, so isn't this all just a formality? Why care? Well, they found a reasonably effective way.
The central black hole business stretches believability a little too thin (especially considering the mis-used proportions of that final black hole), and at times the action scenes, when it goes into hand-to-hand combat, feel rote (not to mention headache-inducing because the crackhead editor makes it impossible to figure out what's happening spacially). But it's fine, these problems and many more plagued earlier "Star Trek" movies. In fact, I'm surprised by how faithful this was. My moviegoing friend, a lifelong hardcore "Trek" fan, was inevitably disappointed in every way, so I imagine that's how all the more serious Trekkies will feel because they're such nitpicky bastards, but me, I was expecting the worst too and found myself grandly roused by the final product. Does it explore deep ideas of morality and the human condition? Not really, but a) it does discuss matters of fate, destiny, leadership, and emotion vs. reason, and b) neither did any of the other "Star Trek" movies. They employed intriguing themes, true (well, not so much 2, 3, "Insurrection" or "Nemesis", but the rest), but aside from the "2001"-ish "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" that started it all, they placed just as much emphasis upon big crowd-pleasing action scenes, special effects, and character humor as this new reboot does, despite those being the chief reasons why people like my friend Nick think it failed or deviated from the earlier "Trek" ideal. And anyway, I say if the movie entertains in other avenues, you can forgive whatever else it lacks of the original formula. Honestly, if Rob Zombie's "Halloween" were any one of the following things: creepy, atmospheric, well-cast, inventively plotted, really brutal, or showstoppingly horrific I wouldn't care nearly as much about the other crucial details that he lost in translation. This new "Trek" goes out of its way to give us a fun time and doesn't stray hardly at all from the foundations of "Trek" lore, particularly if we're just talking about the original series that this movie is based on, which was more broad and adventure-driven anyway. If they get around to a "Next Generation" or "Deep Space Nine" origin movie (yeah right), then I'll be checking more closely for talky, cerebral content.
I might say there's too much Leonard Nimoy - it's a nice moment and he nails it, but then he won't go away, appearing in like the next 10 scenes until the very end, watering down the grace of his inclusion. Also, an early scene with kid Kirk driving a convertible off a cliff while listening to the Beastie Boys is downright offensive to anyone who knows anything about "Star Trek". That's the direction the movie could've gone, but thankfully contained it all within this one regrettable scene.
Anyway, bravo. This won't be necessary, and may retroactively ruin the success here, but I hope there are more to come
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
jeff_v [ 6.5 ]
[ add to preferred ]
[ email this review to a friend ]
I was dubious of Star Trek 90210 when it came out, and the young cast does seem at first like they're auditioning for a CW pilot, but ultimately this felt more like an episode of Lost than, say, Vampire Diaries. The series is so long-running and so ingrained in popular culture that despite Abrams' attempts to mess with it a little it, it mostly plays like a fated exercise in nostalgia, with all the character doing their bits and nothing truly suprising or original (or, God forbid, thought-provoking) surfacing. Still, it was reasonably entertaining.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Stitch [ 8.5 ]
[ add to preferred ]
[ email this review to a friend ]
I am a trekkie, not a trekker. I don't go to conventions, I don't speak Klingon, I don't freak out if they deviate a bit from the known Star Trek universe, but I do love the shows and the movies. That said, I really enjoyed this entry. It did mess with the history of the characters but that did allow for unexpected events and allows for the writers to get really creative. Since it is Star Trek the chances of this "alternate reality" sticking around is questionable. But I'm anxious for the next installment. Special kudos to the young actors who took on such well know characters and made them familiar and new all at the same time. See it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
chapter11 [ 7.5 ]
[ add to preferred ]
[ email this review to a friend ]
I think DokBrowne nailed it when he said something along the lines of "goes out of its way to give us a fun time". As a non-Trekker myself (I have "Khan" under my belt and that's about it), I admired Abrams' devotion to pleasing the built-in fanbase while managing to make it wholly accessible to outsiders, and that's to say nothing about the surprisingly terrific cast. When I first saw Chris Pine in "Smokin' Aces", I thought, "gee, this is a guy I hope I never see again", a statement which now slides comfortably next to other recent aborted cinematic prophesies like "Heath Ledger will NEVER pull off Nolan's version of the Joker" and "Halloween 2 is gonna be the SHIT". He's wonderful. They're all wonderful. Spaceship fare still isn't my genre of choice, but "Trek" entertained me more than I ever thought possible, so kudos to all involved.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Weighted Rating | : 6.8 |
| No. Ratings | : 11 | |
| No. Reviews | : 6 | |
|
|
|
|