Star Trek

Spock and Kirk's friendship is at the heart of this hip, funny reboot, writes DONALD CLARKE.

IF YOU'VE tired of Lost, never got on with Aliasor found Mission: Impossible IIIonly ordinary, you may wonder why people keep describing JJ Abrams as a genius. Here's why: The brain behind all those entertainments has managed the near-impossible with this unpretentious, witty, incredibly LOUD reinvention of Star Trek.

The people at Paramount asked JJ to produce the sort of paradoxical entity you might expect to find hovering above cardboard rocks in an episode of the original series. This object must have a glossy external form, but must simultaneously appear as different things to different viewers.

Dedicated Star Trekfans will enjoy a meditation upon the edicts of Vulcan culture and the limitations of the Prime Directive. Tartrazine-charged infants will see an enormous number of explosions and hear a great deal of NOISE. Romantically inclined teenagers will see a kind of intergalactic OC(though better than that sounds). And, if you work on the 114th floor of Paramount Towers, then the screen will be filled with cascading waves of million-dollar bills.

By pulling it off, Abrams has confirmed his status as a master technician of genre dynamics. A little short on the series' Big Ideas, but stuffed with action and jokes, the film could be seen as a conscious rebuff to 1979's famously pompous Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It will almost surely prove to be the most purely enjoyable matinee entertainment we see this year.

As is the fashion these days, Abrams has decided to examine the prehistory of his characters. The film begins with an astonishingly NOISY bust-up between a Romulan battleship and a vessel commanded by James T Kirk’s father. Indeed, the future captain is, as the quasi-Vulcans launch their assault, busy being born in the quarterdeck of the Starfleet spacecraft.

Realising that all is lost, Kirk Sr orders the crew – wife and bairn included – to abandon ship, while he enjoys a noble death. We then flash forward to a later future to find anal Spock preparing for Starfleet Academy and boozy Jim speeding about Iowa on a hyper-bike.

Professional Trekkers will have noticed several deviations from the standard narrative. Abrams and his writers have cleverly decided to slip in a temporal anomaly that sends the narrative hurtling into an alternate universe. They can, thus, honour most of the original series’ canonical dictates, while ignoring those that still seem like hangovers from the 1960s. Lt Uhuru is now something more than a glorified telephonist. Simon Pegg’s Scottie actually has a Scottish accent.

As the film progresses, Spock, whose mother is human (or whatever similar species claims Winona Ryder), decides to accept his Vulcan culture and spurns instinct for logic. After one too many fights, Kirk also acknowledges that he is his father’s son and joins the Academy.

Meanwhile, renegade Romulan Eric Bana plans some sort of revenge for a slight that he suffered long ago in the future (this is Star Trek, remember).

The new film does a good job of finding new things to do with that looming space opera, and it delights in refashioning the look of Star Trekinto a shinier, glassier iUniverse. The film is, however, most remarkable for the economic way it deals with the series' key relationships.

Zachary Quinto, looking uncannily like a young Leonard Nimoy, and Chris Pine, less theatrical than William Shatner but every bit as proud, offer us raw, distilled versions of Spock and Kirk. When, through an unusual, though believable set of disasters, they end up in charge of the Starship Enterprise, the two men fall out spectacularly and, in their immature disputes, the essences of their contrasting personalities spill out onto the deck. Spock is even more of a pain in the bum than he later becomes. Kirk is even more arrogant.

Observing their gradual accommodation is as moving as being allowed a glimpse of the developing friendship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. More touching still is an eventual appearance by Nimoy himself that helps attach the film to its many predecessors by a delicate grey thread.

Might the producers blow it in the same way that Bond Inc mucked up their revitalisation with the wretched Quantum of Solace? Probably not. Abrams remains on board and, if his instincts remain true, the series will live long in delightful (and NOISY) prosperity. Enjoy.

Directed by JJ Abrams. Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy, John Cho, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Winona Ryder 12A cert, gen release, 126 min