Star Trek Movie Review

Space has indeed been the final frontier for Hollywood's
grandiose drama. But, while most film academicians may nominate the George Lucas Star War series as the mother of all space adventures, Star Trek too glitters in a galaxy not far behind. The time and space transcending bond between Captain Kirk and pointy-eared Spock are truly the stuff legends are made of. As are their sundry adventures which see them piloting the peace-keeping armada of the USS Enterprise from one planet to the other, taming rebels and adding friends to the intergalactic Federation.

The film was meant to reinvigorate the franchise which had gained popularity in the form of a television series with actors William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy creating cult characters of the two legendary space gladiators
, Captain Kirk and Mr Spock. Reinvigorate, it does. But even more than that, it creates a spectacle that scores both in terms of its sheer visual opulence and its vibrant characters. On the one hand, there is the shock and awe factor which has the viewer sitting back and watching black holes swallow up whole planets along with a gravity defying physical combat on the deck of a hurtling space ship. On the other, there is the crackling relationship between a rakish, rebellious twenty-something Kirk (Christopher Pine) and the clinically logical, yet emotional Vulcan-human Spock (Zachary Quinto) which keeps you glued to your seat. You can't seem to get enough of their dushmani-dosti business.

The film opens in the present....Young Kirk is racing cars in a desert in Iowa, while the boyish Spock is trying to choose between his conflicting realities of a Vulcan father and a human mother. Kirk too has his own ghosts to chase since he must live up to his heroic father's memory and doesn't know how to do it, being the quintessential rebel and rule breaker. He gets a chance when he is forced to join the space programme and is smuggled on to a space ship by his friend Bones McCoy. The space ship is intercepted by the tattooed and terribly angry Captain Nero (Eric Bana) who wants to teach the young Spock, currently the captain of the ship, a lesson. He wants to avenge the annihilation of his planet Romulus by a more aged Spock, sometime in the future. And he does so by creating a similar black hole which swallows Spock's home planet, Vulcan, along with his mother (Winona Ryder). But that's just one part of this riveting tale of time travel and revenge. The more interesting part is the interaction between the brat boy Kirk who must throw out Spock from the Captain's seat and supplant himself if he really wants to save the universe from the space raiders.

Watch Pine (Kirk) and Quinto (Spock) live out their boyish rage, followed by a rare friendship, on a spinning space ship and you'll get your money's worth. Specially since both Pine and Quinto acquit themselves excellently as the unforgettable and older William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. An added bonus is the presence of Nimoy himself who comes back from the future to teach a few tricks of the trade to a reckless young Kirk, who has been thrown out of the space ship for breaking rules. A racy screen play, fine acting and scintillating special effects make Star Trek a super show.

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