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Star Trek

Saw it 4 hours before the World Premiere, with Leonard Nimoy. I love my CyberMonkey life! And it was so good I'm writing this instead of sleeping!
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Eric Bana
Rating: 9/10
Directed By: J.J. Abrams
Runtime: 126 minutes

Good morning, my monklets! It's just a bit past 1 am. here in the lair, and I can't sleep. I was just victim to the best prank of the year (and it's not even April 1st). I was lured out of the house tonight with a promise of a newly restored 35mm print of Wrath of Khan, followed by 10 minutes of never before seen footage of the new Star Trek film by J.J. Abrams. Of course I went. New footage of Trek was cool, but a chance to see Wrath on the big screen? That was too good to miss. After the obligatory search, we were seated and got a surprise - the writers of the Trek film had skipped the (official) World Premiere in Australia to be with us to present the 10 minutes of footage, because they made the film for "the fans" and wanted to be there when the fans saw it. They then spoke a bit about Wrath and how it served as inspiration for them. The lights dimmed, and the film began.

And 5 minutes in, it got scratchy. It broke. It melted. The Alamo's own Tim League threw the writers back on stage to "fill", while he went upstairs to see what was wrong. And a few minutes later, enter the man himself, Leonard Nimoy, who informed us that he thought it was wrong that Australia would get the premiere of the new film, so he brought it with him. We had all been punked. That's right, I didn't see Wrath after all, but I did see the brand new Star Trek. Not a bad trade. Or was it?

See, that was my second thought. After "Wow, this is so cool", I had a sense of dread. What if the movie wasn't very good? I had my doubts about it going in, I'll be honest. In the trailers, Chris Pine did not impress me. At all. I had good vibes about Zachary Quinto, and the little bit I saw of Karl Urban as McCoy gave me a glimmer of hope. So here I was, on the hot seat a bit.

No worries. The movie was awesome. It almost pains me to say how good it was, because I know it sounds like a snow job. But you know me by now, right? I can't be bought. This Star Trek is the real deal.

By which I mean it isn't. This is not a faithful homage to the original series. Or to the original movies. It's the same characters, but throw canon out the window folks. It's a new world, it's a new story, things are different. Major different. Yes, the rumors are true, Spock-and-Uhura-in-love different.

But what it also is, is incredibly faithful. By which I mean no true Trek fan can be upset about the changes, because they are perfectly explained in a perfectly faithful Trek explanation that would dovetail into the original series so well I'd defy you to not love it. So there. Bite my ass, fan-boys.

On top of all that, however, it's just a damn good movie. If you're a Lost fan, I think you'll dig the story line. If this was a Star Trek stew, you could detect some definite hints of Lost flavoring. Subtle, not overdone, just enough to enhance the Trek but not overwhelm it. Chris Pine won me over. He was able to take a role that is indelibly stamped with Shatner's musk and make it his own. He ain't Shatner, but this is a different Kirk. And damn it, I liked this Kirk. Karl Urban was f-ing magnificent! Better than anything he's done in the past (and I liked him as Eomer). Zoe Saldana also had a tough role to pull off. Nichelle Nichols was such an iconic actress, in my mind Uhura is synonymous with the grace, strength, and pride that Nichelle brought to the role. Zoe sold me. She was a younger Uhura, a less experienced Uhura, but you can see the Uhura she will become. I'm not going to go on and on about everyone. They were all good. But Quinto? He brought his A game on this one. You remember how on Star Trek, the original, every once in awhile Spock would slip up and show some emotion? Quinto plays a Spock who is no less conflicted about his human/Vulcan dichotomy but who maybe made a few different choices about how to reconcile them.

And it's all explained in perfect, perfect I tell you, Trek storytelling.

The story is good. The villain is good. The effects are great. The action is everything you could hope for. It was funny when it needed to be, but the humor never felt forced. There was one scene, involving a beasty, that really didn't work for me, but the pay off almost redeemed it.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, in my Magnificent opinion, this is the second best Star Trek movie. Ever.

Because nothing beats a pissed off Ricardo Montalban.