Star Trek

Director JJ Abrams, fresh off the success of Cloverfield, bring his directorial genius to Star Trek, a story based off the original television show with a younger cast playing the original characters.

In the film, a Romulan ship led by Captain Nero (Eric Bana) goes on a vengeful crusade against the Federation for the destruction of his home planet Romulus.

As Nero continues his crusade, the story switches to the evolution of the original crew, including the story of James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto).

Kirk, who is a rebellious young man, meets Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) of the USS Enterprise following a barroom brawl.

Pike told Kirk of the story of his late father and how he saved his entire crew from an attack by Captain Nero's ship, a way to influence Kirk in enlisting in Starfleet.

As Kirk began his tenure with Starfleet, he is accused of cheating for being the lone recruit to pass the Kobayashi-Maru test implemented by Spock.

Before punishment was handed down by Starfleet received word that Spock's home planet Vulcan was under distress.

The Enterprise was one of several ships to respond to the incident. At first, Kirk was unable to join the crew due to his academic situation, but was brought on board as a patient of Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban).

Kirk and McCoy, joins the other familiar characters on board the Enterprise; Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and later on in the film Mr. Scott or Scotty (Simon Pegg).

As the Enterprise pursues Captain Nero following the destruction of Spock's home planet, a dispute between Kirk and Spock threatens the balance of power for captain of the vessel.

When Spock attacks Kirk, Spock steps down as temporary captain due to being emotionally compromised because of his planet's destruction and the death of his human mother played by Winona Ryder.

From there, Kirk who at first was a and the rest is history.

I found this story to flow real well, except the time travel concept, caused very few lapses, especially the meeting between two Spocks near the end of the film.

The acting in the film was fantastic. Pine, Quinto and Urban were almost mirror images of the characters portrayed by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and the late DeForest Kelley.

The supporting cast was great as well, especially Pegg as Scotty. Even though there were several humorous moments in the film, a bulk of the comedy was delivered solidly by Pegg.

The one thing that was a little much was the monsters featured in the film, they were quite "Cloverfieldesque" in their uniqueness, (meaning not so original).

Despite, the time travel story and the monsters in the film, I thought this movie overall was good and personally this movie should have kicked off this summer season instead of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The only thing I wonder, is that with the time travel story line, will there be a chance for a series of movies with a younger cast, and hopefully Abrams leads the way.

It's tough to say, who is a better director Abrams or Christopher Nolan, whose list of hits is endless.

As of now, Star Trek would be on the top of my Best of List for 2009.

Best of 2009 (so far)

1. Star Trek

2. I Love You, Man

3. The Soloist

4. Watchmen

5. Monsters vs. Aliens

That was my review of Star Trek, now check what some other local critics thought of Star Trek; 1. Burl Morgan, 2. Levi and Justin Sease, 3. Bud Adams and Frank Anderson.