Star Trek: Boldly Going Hardly Nowhere

Checked out the new Star Trek today.

As I tweeted earlier, the movie was okay. It wasn’t great – just good, and really, that is a little bit of a let down with how psyched I was going in to see the film.

It occurs to me that J.J. Abrams is a great television story teller. Shows like Fringe, Lost and Alias really show how creative he is. However, movie wise Abrams still hasn’t found his rhythm.

Mission Impossible was good, but also not great. I actually can’t tell you the plot on that one. Cloverfield was pretty mediocre. It was memorable of course for the poor ending and even worse camera work (I know, I know it was intentional).

So here comes Star Trek.

I was really looking forward to seeing how Zachary Quinto played Spock, as the resemblance was uncanny. And for the most part, I thought he did a good job. I can’t honestly say any of the acting was bad. It was just — the story. The plot of this flick was about as creative and new as the Star Trek with the whales. How many more of Star Trek plots are going to involve some sort of world ending (or creating) weapon?

I also had a little bit of an issue with the pacing of the movie. It pretty much started fast and STAYED fast. Generally, that would be good. However, it made the movie go by unnaturally fast. Star Trek felt like it was a 45 min movie to me. It was like — Kirk’s dad suicides into Romulan ship, Kirk born, Kirk grows up in like 5 mins of movie time (same with Spock), Kirk gets in bar fight and next Kirk is captain of the Enterprise. That whole sequence of events felt like it took 15 mins or less. All along the way, we get these incredibly obvious introductions to the other main characters.

Kind of made me think of the saying (or maybe it is one I made up): Romance me a bit before you fuck me.

The actor who played McCoy (Karl Urban I believe was his name) did an incredible job. I also really enjoyed Sulu’s performance.

Obviously this movie is headed to a sequel. Hopefully the next one will have a good story and take a little more time developing it.

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