4 out of 5

Directed by: Justin Lin

I have no outright dedication to the Trek universe.  I’ve certainly done my time in the trenches – I’ve seen all the films; I was a consistent Next Gen viewer – but there hasn’t been anything particular about the series that’s ever made me want to dig into deeper lore or wear a uniform to a convention.  So I was a good candidate for enjoyment of the “nuTrek” rejiggers, and indeed, I enjoyed them.  Even Khan – I mean Into Darkness – occurring well after we realized J.J. Abrams was sort of a less jock-y, slightly smarter Michael Bay, making entertaining films without much heart; I still thought it was a worthwhile film experience, if, at times, yamningly steeped in destruction porn.

All in all, the key thing was accomplished that I’d hoped for: They’d gotten the vibe of the series down, and gone beyond just doing Spock and Scotty impressions. Fanboy or not, the “vibe” of familiarity and comfort Trek imbues – the crews at home in space, pushing the frontier forever outward – is part of what made, for me at least, the best Trek moments feel particularly like Trek.  The budgets were bigger and the explosions more world-ending, but nuTrek did seem to get that.

And director Justin Lin has latched on to that success and made what feels like the first “real” Star Trek film of the new era, one that, look and feel and theme, could plop into the original series, without forgoing the “big” sensibilities modern films require.  If anything, its worst parts are its action sequences – ironic from a director who made his name on the Fast and Furious action series – but only because Lin seems to understand that these sequences can’t compete with comic books or Transformers-level spectacles, and so he shaky cams through them almost programmatically, finding a visual hook of shifting gravitational planes that shows up in each scene but not dawdling on it for longer than necessary before getting back to our story.  It’s a “thinking man’s” Trek (not very deep thought, but I’d argue the originals never went too deep either) that accepts the requirement of having to entertain the kids every now and then.

This can all best be exemplified by the film’s lack of starting titles; the cold open of Kirk (Chris Pine, having learned a perfectly weary but heroic glower for the role) negotiating peace with an alien race; the no-music-sting slow lead-in to the film’s main going-ons – with no cheap cutaways to villain machinations – that allows time for Kirk, Bones (Karl Urban), and Spock (Zachary Quinto) to beat around the film’s “what are we here for?” premise for a bit, morosely, before the crew gets kicked into a mission.  It’s slow, and appreciably so; it’s a very unflashy opening section for a Summer film, but its what hinted to me that this was the real Trek deal from the start.

There’s certainly more to love as the plot continues, dealing with age and purpose much less ham-fistedly than other long-running franchise Bond’s attempts in Skyfall, and wowing us not with we’ve-seen-it-before set pieces but with the purposefully congested world building of different creatures and races; this is the first time the Enterprise felt like a varied entire crew and not just a handful of white guys + Uhura.  (…though, er, Zoe Saldana still feels, admittedly, rather marginalized.)  Simon Pegg and Doug Jung’s script obviously deserves credit for its smarter themes and Trek-ly-familiar humor, but it’s also the gateway that allows for this world-building, as the story has Kirk and crew stranded on a planet under a bad guys control; compare to the last location-hopping Treks, where there’s not much time to dialogue between we’re-here-and-now-we’re-there pacing, and it’s clear how holding us to one primary location creates a more level plane off of which to get some story -telling footing.

This same thoughtfulness is extended to Idris Elba’s Krall.  Elba is outstanding in the role, showing his character’s struggle with the weight of his own history.  If his background is another one of the movie’s hiccups – a fairly blatantly telegraphed reveal that’s intended to keep working on those themes – it still gives us a villain who has more to yammer about than just “something something destroy.”  (Again, just to clarify, it’s still really only “something something loaded statement about the Federation destroy”, but my main point here is that the film took a few steps “Beyond” that of its nu-predecessors.)

There’s already another Trek confirmed.  A lot of pieces added up to this entry’s success – an at-home, perfectly cast cast; an intelligent script; a director who understood this should be character-over-action – but the takeaway is that it felt like my first real Trek experience in years.  So as opposed to sequel-itis shrugs at whatever’s lined up for the future, I’d like to have that experience again, and so I’m eager to see if (hopefully) the same team can, ahem, make it so.