Star Trek Review

Fred and I saw Star Trek today as part of our Anniversary celebration. And I thought I'd share what we thought of it.

I think a large portion of our opinion of movies comes from preconceptions. For this movie, we both had very reserved expectations going in. Neither of us are Star Trek fans. And I in particular don't really enjoy mindless, summer, cgi-filled, action blockbusters. But, we both LOVE J.J. Abrams and so, were intrigued and wanted to see what he'd do with this franchise.

That being established, we really enjoyed the movie. I wouldn't say it was a great movie, but it was very good and enjoyable. The whole movie was very J.J. Abrams - which is a good thing. There was lots of action (although not enough for Fred). There was good character development (I liked that). The story was interesting and well told - the plot moved along nicely. I think that the plot could've been more complex - but that's coming from a total LOST addict (anything that doesn't make my brain feel like jello at the end is going to be too simple for me). Zachary Quinto was excellent as Spock. The rest of the cast was really good to, but he was the highlight for me.

The movie did cater to the teenage boy demographic too much for my taste. There were a couple dumb gags that only elicited eye rolls from me. I know they're trying to jump start the Star Trek franchise and they're appealing to a younger audience to do so. It was pretty clean too - very little language and not a lot of violence.

Usually I hate the mindless, cgi heavy dribble that fills the movie theaters during the summer months. The plots are usually so flimsy - they're just there to piece together the multi-million dollar cgi action sequences. But, this movie was smart and had 3-dimensional characters. The movie grabs you and pulls you into the Star Trek universe and makes you love it, even if you've never had any love for it before.

Overall we really liked it and recommend seeing it. It's been a long time since I've gone to see a movie opening day, and I have to say I miss it. Maybe we'll be doing this again a few more times this summer.

Entertainment Weekly has a review of it here too, in case you want a second opinion.