Star Trek

City Paper Grade: B

by Shaun Brady

TREKKIE: Zachary Quinto's Spock is a reworking, not a pale imitation, of Leonard Nimoy's original portrayal in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

[City Paper Grade: B]

It's always hard to predict what will incur a diehard fanboy's wrath, but J.J. Abrams quickly provides himself a get-out-of-Trekkie-hell-free card. His adrenalized reboot opens with a black hole singularity that not only allows Eric Bana's Romulan villain to travel back in time seeking revenge but places this film in its own parallel universe, acknowledging the Trek that exists but freeing the new franchise from the stranglehold of canon and timeliness and obsessive nit-picking — a canny move not just in regard to Vulcan-eared convention-goers but for the rest of us, familiar with the series but sure as hell couldn't order dinner at a Klingon restaurant. Abrams has carved out a niche for himself in pumped-up popcorn fare, amplifying well-worn genre conventions until they seem, if not new, then loud enough that it doesn't matter. His Trek follows in that mode, full of details that wouldn't seem out of place in a 40-year-old episode but turned up to 11. It certainly moves at a slick, breakneck pace very different from the often clunky films made by the original cast. But most importantly, this new rendition maintains the one thing those films got unerringly right — the warmth and rapport of its cast. Across the board, the nascent Enterprise crew is perfectly embodied by enthusiastic portrayals that evoke without imitating. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto have the most thankless jobs, but Pine's cocksure, womanizing Kirk is arrogant without being unlikable, his maturation under pressure convincing; Quinto's Spock, placed face-to-face with Nimoy's original, bears the uncertainty of youth, struggling (and overcompensating) to balance his Vulcan and human halves. The show is largely stolen, though, by Karl Urban's already-crotchety Bones McCoy. The only real disappointment is Bana's bland Nero; an intriguing concept — a blue-collar guy wronged in the worst possible way, rather than the usual despotic conqueror — wasted, perhaps necessarily sacrificed to make way for the main cast's burgeoning relationships.

—Shaun Brady