Somebody has to say it. Star Trek just isn't all that good.
Oh, it gets off to a fine start. (Although why did they dig that big ditch in the middle of Iowa?) And it is, as always, awesome to watch stuff blow up. After all, I'm the guy who really enjoyed Transformers. I wanted to like this movie. And I did. But not as much as I expected to. Why? Three reasons, really. In order of importance:
(1) Product placements. Actually, no, that didn't bother me. That was a plus. The first one, though, was super boring. The second, a bit more clever. “Classic,” indeed.
Restart. Why? Two reasons, really. In order of importance:
(1) Except for the uniforms (sort of) they missed a lot of chances to riff on the old sets and props. Modernize them, of course, so they don't look stupid. You'd want better materials and maybe have the screens be screens instead of flashing lights. But they changed everything. Hell, they even altered the ship's exterior. Still, that's penny ante stuff. The real problem is that ...
(2) ... it made no sense. I don't mean the physics and all; you don't expect that to make any sense. I mean everything else. Including ... SPOILER ALERT ...
... Spock and Uhura getting it on? I'm not opposed to the idea, but how the hell did that happen? The rest of the plot wasn't all that much better.
Anyway, I'd be happy to see it again, because stuff done did blow up. Plus, Karl Urban makes a great McCoy. Hell, all the actors were great. And I will note that the story is indeed compatible with that most famous line from the old show: “I believe they had a device called a clutch.”
As I said to Carlos the other day: contemplating the universe of possible Star Trek movies that could have been made, this one comes out around the 90%th percentile: could have been better, sure, but could have been so so much worse.
Consider: have you ever walked out of a Star Trek movie before thinking "that would have been better if it was just a little /longer/"?
Doug M.
Posted by: Doug M. | May 26, 2009 at 10:01 PM