Star Trek (Film Review)

The latest Trek movie, Star Trek Into Darkness will be released next week. And as the clock tickles more and more, to hold my excitement towards the movie, decided to review the 2009 JJ Abrams flick, Star Trek.

If you've read the title of my blog, i'm a geek. And i'm not actually somewhat a movie geek myself, i'm also a huge fan of the Star Trek franchise. I'm not sleeping not until 10pm just to catch the Original Series on Cable TV played a pivotal role in my childhood (well, until now). My favorite film of the whole franchise is Wrath of Khan for two reasons: it's 20 times better than The Motion Picture and the second being it is well-executed. That movie alone defines what Star Trek is, that Star Wars ultimately haven't: broader themes of the justice and raw emotion puts towards in its characters. And that's what exactly JJ Abrams did in his first Trek movie, Star Trek. He gives justice to his characters and it will surprisingly make a non-Star Trek or a Star Wars fan to like a Star Trek movie.

It was released by the Summer of 2009, and is one of the main highlights of that year. Everyone's anticipating and preparing about it, expectations as expected is boiling up (because this is Star Trek we're dealing with) and that expectation ended up staying the same. This is probably the greatest Star Trek movie since Wrath of Khan. As I remember watching the film along with my friends, audiences were cheering and applauding especially the introduction of Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime and the ending. The plot's basically an origin movie where we see a cocky and rebellious Kirk, and he does every single swollen-headed guy would do. From cheating the unwinnable Kobiyashi Maru test to being part of the enterprise until ended up to become the captain of the ship.

Star Trek stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Jon Cho, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, etc. There's a lot of good names under its belt and they did a really good job with the movie. Chris Pine, who before starred in really terrible movies was bad-ass as Kirk. Zachary Quinto, who I thought never see him coming to grab the role of Spock, was fascinating and also bad-ass as Spock. The film's main strength is the overgrowing friendship between Kirk and Spock and I liked that. If you watched older movies of Trek, you can suddenly be curious how did Kirk and Spock became friends. The explanation in this movie explained it very good.

About everyone in the lead cast are thoroughly great. John Cho, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin and Bruce Greenwood hands down was surprisingly great on their respective roles. The visuals were outstanding. You get a sense of realism in the vast space and the enterprise. Camera work was something to be amused in the movie besides the lens flares. There's a lot of panning shots in the bridge and it gets you to feel alive in every scene in the bridge. Action scenes were just amazing, it will make every single nerd jumps to excitement and all that stuff. Every single aspect of the film will make every single nerd out there, love this movie.

I'm seeing Star Trek Into Darkness tomorrow and I have enough time to talk more in other films and some spoilers, so i'm ending here right now.

'Star Trek' is the best film of 2009 and the greatest Trek movie after Wrath of Khan. With great performances by the cast and Abram's direction, fans and non-fans of the Trek lore will be contented.

The geek rates it 9.3/10. I will be back for my next review and that is Star Trek Into Darkness. Live Long and Prosper!

In the meantime, why not check the trailer for 'Star Trek':