STAR TREK - j.j. abrams - 8.0 / 10

Describing a particular film as a rollercoaster thrill ride is about as cliché as it gets and usually the last refuge of the lazy critic, but that phrase is uniquely appropriate as a description of Star Trek in that the film is as fast moving, exciting, enjoyable, harmless and ultimately forgettable as any ride at Six Flags. To be sure, that’s no small accomplishment. I’m hard pressed to think of more than a handful of films that offer as much genuine enjoyment as this one. But like a rollercoaster ride that’s been enjoyed by thousands of theme park attendees without any real incident, the thrill of Star Trek is just in taking the ride, not in being asked to contemplate what any of it means.

And that’s a really good thing for the film because if you stop and think about what’s actually happening at any given moment, none of it makes any damn sense. For instance, is it really believable that Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood, outstanding) is able to convince Jim Kirk (Chris Pine, appealingly arrogant) to enlist in Starfleet that easily after he’s spent his whole life running away from the institution that took his father? Does it make any sense that a stowaway on the Enterprise (Kirk) would be promoted to First Officer before having done anything to deserve it? Is there really no one on that massive ship more qualified? (The same could also be said for Uhura and Dr. McCoy who go from cadets to bridge officers in what has to be world record time.) Or, for that matter, what the hell is Winona Ryder doing in old age makeup playing Spock’s mom? Couldn’t they have found someone age appropriate to play the part?

Thankfully, however, it’s pretty hard to concentrate on these questions and inconsistencies while the film is unspooling. It’s only afterwards in thinking about it that they crop up. During the film, the terrific cast glosses over any holes by having so much damn fun flying a spaceship, teleporting into hostile environments, parachuting from outer space (another thing that I’m pretty sure is impossible) and knocking the crap out of each other. Their sense of wonder, adventure and excitement is so infectious that it’s impossible not to get caught up in it. There’s no guile, introspection or brooding. Everyone is just loving whatever it is they’re doing. From Chekov running down the halls to get to the teleportation room so he can rescue Kirk and Sulu to Scotty’s glee at seeing a fistfight on the bridge to Kirk’s amused grin pretty much all the time, it’s abundantly clear that everyone is on the adventure of their lives. And it’s pretty hard to hate on the film in the midst of that.

Similarly, this shared sense of glee between the audience and the characters is what made Iron Man work as well as it did (and earn as much money as it did). The film might be flawed (hell, it’s really flawed) but Tony Stark is having so much damn fun being Iron Man that the audience has fun too. With so many revered blockbusters of late (The Dark Knight, Superman Returns, etc.) making it seem like being a hero is a lot of work and inflicts some serious psychological damage, seeing the characters of Star Trek almost giddy at the prospect of saving the day is pretty remarkable and extremely satisfying. Just like a rollercoaster, there’s all the fun of actually doing something harrowing and death defying with none of the attendant danger or stress that would come with doing it for real.

That, of course, is also why the film falls short of real greatness (well, that and all the plot holes). There’s just no way that real people put in situations like these would behave the way these characters do. And because they wouldn’t, the film really doesn’t have all that much to say beyond simply entertaining its audience. But given how few would-be blockbusters accomplish even that, Star Trek is sort of remarkable.

If that seems like I’m damning the film with faint praise, perhaps that’s because I wasn’t quite as taken with it as I think I could have been had I known nothing about the Star Trek universe going in. There were a few too many nods to the original TV series and movies for my taste and they kept knocking me out of the film. Any time some tidbit of Trek lore was referenced (the Vulcan death grip, the guy in the red suit dying first, etc.), it momentarily broke the fourth wall and took me out of the film. And I’m not even that big a fan of the original series. I’ve only seen a handful of episodes of the show and only the first two (out of six) of the films. I imagine that if I’d seen them all this film might have been little more than a long string of inside jokes.

That being the case, I wonder if the film is actually less entertaining for hardcore Trekkies (or Trekkers or whatever they’re calling themselves these days). They might be pleased at having been kowtowed to, but having in-jokes constantly taking you out of the film is more annoying than anything else. I imagine they’ll also complain that even though the new film is a lot more visually impressive and emotionally thrilling than anything the original series and films were able to do, that misses the whole point of Star Trek. The point, at least as I understand it since I’m not much of a fan, is that the lack of pleasing aesthetics is the point. The show made its audience work to enjoy it. And though this turned off a lot of people, if you managed to stick with it, the reward was (supposedly) great.

I can’t really speak to that but I think rebooting Star Trek this way, as a fun, enjoyable ride, was the only way to make the series relevant again. The introspection and deeper meaning can came in the inevitable sequels. For now I’m content to marvel at the way in which J.J. Abrams and Co. (a group of people I honestly never thought would create anything of real merit) have reinvigorated an all but deceased franchise simply by making it fun. They made the world of Star Trek—a world that had, in the last decade or so, become all but synonymous with nerdy geekdom—a place that the average filmgoer who has never read a science fiction book in his life would want to visit. That alone is a remarkable feat. But that they did it with such unfettered joy makes Star Trek the blockbuster to beat this summer.