Star Trek - The Future Begins!

Is Star Trek - The Future Begins a perfect movie? Of course not, but it's a dang good movie with a brisk pace and some very good casting. The story is just complicated enough to hang in there for the duration, and the villains are dastardly looking enough for several films. The heroes are youthful and frankly seem way too young for the duties which have fallen to them. That's the point I know. But I couldn't escape the feeling I was watching sidekicks. (That could be my age revealing itself.)

There are some fall down funny sequences, especially when the late Anton Yelchin's Pavel Chekov cannot make the computer understand his exotic speech pattern. The bit with Bones giving Kirk a disease was hilarious. Loved it all. The way these new guys got the voice patterns of the classic characters was fantastic at times, especially Karl Urban as Bones McCoy. The interplay between Chris Pine's Kirk and Bones is super, always lively and entertaining. Uhura is beautiful and resourceful as played by Zoe Saldana. John Cho's Sulu is impressive especially in the unexpected swordfight. When Simon Pegg shows up as Scotty, the humor gets broader still. 

But all that aside I did find the sense of threat minimal. Part of that has to do with emotion. Not enough time is spent establishing the villains and their motivations. I know the back story from the comics prequel, but I shouldn't have to bring that prior knowledge to this movie, the movie should do that work for me. The failure to make Nero a full-fledged character and not just a malevolent baddie cost the film some of its emotional depth, especially between Nero and Spock. The are two sides of the coin, but that isn't brought into focus the way it might've been. 

And I know it's necessary for the story and I know it's a tradition with new versions of this franchise, but the use of Nimoy as Spock the Elder really didn't click for me. It undermined the freshness of this new...ahem...enterprise. And frankly the somewhat maudlin Spock that Nimoy has perfected seemed out of place in this new environment at the time, perhaps that was intentional. I do know that since seeing the movie for the first and knowing that it was the final performance of Leonard Nimoy as Spock, the scenes are more impressive. 

That said, the action is swift and relentless. The fight sequence atop the drill is outstanding, and the Enterprise never looked better to my eye. The veneer is all here, and I can see good things for the future. But next time I hope they slow it down just a smidge and ramp up the feeling. Check back in a few days to see how they did. 

NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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