The following is a long form review that I originally wrote in 2013
I did like Star Trek. I did not, however, appear to like it as much as the rest of the whole damn planet.
I appreciate the decent helping of Australian actors in the mix (like personal favourite Chris Hemsworth, above). I can get behind the colourful and impressive special effects spectacle. Most of all I dig the reboot angle they pulled. The whole time travel/tangent universe thing is the perfect breeding of remaining true to the original, while still not constricting themselves to the old canon. Fantastic idea.
But I didn’t love it. I’m a big fan of origin stories, but I personally feel that Star Trek never really breached past that point. The first half was brilliant, getting to know the characters, the world, the ideals, everything. But in the latter half it seems they just sort of went “Well, we spent a bunch of time doing stuff good, but now we don’t have enough time left to make an actual movie out of this… Oh well, just chuck an hour of lasers in there and we’ll worry about that next film!” which just isn’t good enough. When Into Darkness comes out later this year, the format will probably pay off, but looking at the merits of Star Trek alone, I think it fell short.
Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) as the new Scotty and Zachary Quinto (American Horror Story, Heroes) as the new Spock were both solid choices, but other casting decisions like Winona Ryder (Black Swan, Alien: Resurrection) as Spock’s mother were an off-shot in the worst possible way.
I suppose though, in science fiction, it’s often safety first and little steps. As a member of what is probably the most frowned upon of the genres, I wish this Star Trek reboot all the best in its inevitable future, and it seems it will make good use of it. But for now, the solo film itself didn’t reach as far as I felt it could have with a little harder work towards the end.
62%
-Gimly