link to my updated with spoilers review (5-23-09)
link to mortmere's review (5-22-09)
My (Fresca's) favorite bit of Star Trek XI: Chekov (Anton Yelchin), who reminds me of Laika, above left, the Soviet space dog. (Though we hope he does not meet with her sad fate.)
Here, below, is a review from my fellow Classicist Lee. I don't agree with all of his points (I thought the Romulans' "giant serrated cuttlefish" ship was fun--sort of a relative of a parrot, and I'm partial to parrots), and I'd only give the movie a C-, to be nice, but in general I'm there.
Lee's Star Trek Review—in exactly 500 words!
Top-Ten Ups:
• Laughed my ass off
• Opening scene with Kirk’s family a tear-jerker
• Enterprise looks great on the outside
• Dude who plays Kirk nails it
• Get to see more of Uhura
• People playing “ethnic” characters can actually do the accents
• Karl Urban’s Dr. McCoy: his first scene has the best lines in the movie
• Young Kirk and young Spock were great; their introductory scenes super
• Lots of clever jokes and references to old series and characters
• They wiped out the entire series—TV and movies—to start from scratch!
1st half of the movie: A+!
I was mesmerized!
Top-Ten Downs:
• Time travel: make it stop
• So frenetic it seemed choreographed by Jackson Pollock with a strobe light fetish
• New Uhura gets more air time than Old Uhura, but now her function is mainly sexual (albeit with a brainy, thin veneer)
• Inside of Enterprise is basically a brightly lit photo-shoot OR a series of tubes (Admiral Ted Stevens will be happy to see the future bear him out)
• Hell’s Angel Romulans flying around in giant serrated cuttlefish (also, they’re too young)
• Leonard Nimoy acting through his dentures
• Spock’s 15 minute Metamucil ad—I mean asinine echo-cloaked exposition
• More slander of alien animal species: why do they ALL have to run around screaming, trying to eat you, smashing through everything that gets in their path? Always?
• After hearing the ST proem at the end I wondered: when did seeking out new worlds and new civilizations become boring? When did action-adventure so completely take over? Maybe this is why I still harbor tender feelings for the Motionless Picture: at least it was trying to generate and sustain a sense of mystery and wonder.
• They wiped out the entire series—TV and movies—to start from scratch!
2nd half: C+
I was kinda wishing it would hurry up and end.
Final Grade: B+
The movie would almost certainly have been an A or even A+ if they’d kept to a manageable canvas and ejected all that bric-a-brac whose sole purpose was to create an excuse to make more movies without worrying about continuity. The first half was a real movie; the second an elaborate spin-off ejaculation-and-artificial-insemination program which, in its details, was fairly standard (contemporary) sci-fi issue. I would’ve preferred a single “how did they begin?” film that stayed focused on the characters, even at the cost of more movies.
Bonus quibble: Please stop almost destroying the Earth! It’s gotten to the point where it doesn’t really mean anything anymore.
Bonus “up:” I loved the silent alien dude seated between Uhura and Kirk in Iowa. He looked like a sad-sack character having a rough day, trying to drown some sorrows (or extreme boredom) in a beer. I wonder what HIS story was? I HIGHLY recommend him for Re-Start Trek II: The Wrath of Big-Face Alien Dude. I just know he’s the villain we’ve all been waiting for.
[end Lee's review]
