Kelly Wand"Star Trek" review
May 30th 2009 06:19
TJ Hooker cradles his beloved quatloo.
I confess that I’ve never been much of a Trekkie. You read enough Iain Banks or Olaf Stapledon or even Vernor Vinge, and by comparison Trek’s constant space-time anomalies (how come they never use the same one twice?), excruciating puns, and simplistic, spelled-out morality seem even more vanilla than it all struck me at 12. (Go read Lord of Light or Star Maker and then explain to me how every Star Trek episode combined is in any way, shape, or form better value.) I remember irritably wondering why, if the Vulcans were the smart ones, weren’t we joining their Federation? And how could we cross-breed with them if they had green blood and, uh, no emotions like, say, erotic ardor? Shouldn’t they have more complex emotions?
Then as now, I found it odd that for a show so enshrined by my many, many academically superior peers, this poster-child for NASA recruitment and interracial kisses, the self-proclaimed inspirer of moon-launches and Voyager (the actual Voyager, not the Star Trek spin-off and not “V’jur”) sure was heavy on goofy “science” -- even to me, a kid who considered Lidsville believable. My gut instinct was that people gravitated to Star Trek because it was, for a couple decades, the only game in TV-sci-fi town, or at least it was till Space: 1999, which was awesome till they ruined it with that animal chick who could only turn into Earth-animals (even though she was an alien who’d never been to Earth before). Why was it the only game in town? As we now know, network execs tend to be 30 years or so behind the curve.
Yet over time, ‘60’s Star Trek grew on me. Tribbles, Tholian webs, aging-rays, Spock performing brain surgery on himself unanesthetized, and aging Greek gods making seasoned military veterans bray like donkeys (or Star Trek nerds) were acquired tastes – but admittedly piquant, especially when set against the increasingly austere series reboots (no offense, Patrick Stewart). I gradually came to appreciate the psychedelic bright palette, Kirk’s dickish smirk, Spock’s dubious eyebrow, Uhura’s thighs, and McCoy’s tantrums. Granted, there was rarely much suspense or sense of wonder about the universe, but the characters and sets had a vitality absent from a lot of TV fare, and the budgetary cheapness actually added something cool that none of the pricier subsequent incarnations even bothered to see as a virtue: a sense of isolation, the quiet sense that the Enterprise really was out on the edge of unexplored forever, far from help, all on their own. Cheapness forces creativity. That’s why most people and things suck progressively more the more successful they get. Money is what makes sharks jump, ever higher.
And to his vast credit, director and too-busy-to-care-about-Lost-anymore guy J.J. Abrams doesn’t let his humongous budget get in the way. The movie’s issues are more based on its being essentially a rush-job, but Abrams has a tenacious flair for rush-jobs. He’s understandably ratcheted up the mindless “action” (i.e., CGI) and contrived some hastily established tensions between Kirk and Spock to camouflage the absence of a compelling villain (no offense, Eric Bana), but Abrams and his writers deserve full props not only for incorporating a lot of the campy wacktacularity that was so endemic, however unintentional, to the source material but for embracing it (well, for the first hour or so anyway). Star Trek ’09 is a feathery slapdash fondue of go-go boots, pastel lasers, arbitrary swordfights, a scene with a pair of swollen hands that feels like John Landis came in and directed for a day, and black holes created by “red matter” that either destroy planets or send you back through time, depending on whatever words Nimoy’s saying. It’s dumb but it’s dumb fun. Mostly.
A lot of credit goes to the new cast. Chris Pine doesn’t have Shatner’s swinging-dick braggadocio, and his pretty-boy Dawson’s Creek-esque dreaminess is initially off-putting, as is the fact that, a bit weirdly, the movie never really gives him a chance to display his tactical acumen or leadership. Early on we learn he’s a skilled hacker; he effortlessly cracks Spock’s Kobayashi Maru code, but inexplicably he’s too dumb to cover his tracks or even go through the motions. Later, he basically inherits the captain’s chair of the Enterprise by emotionally manipulating a more intelligent, competent crewman (young Spock, again effortlessly ensorcelled by this apparent dumbass), and only then because a wise mentor (old Spock) told him exactly how to do so. (Just out of curiosity, why is his captaincy permanent?) I kind of liked how Shatner’s Kirk figured shit out on his own. Bruce Greenwood’s Commander Pike dotes on this new Kirk and tells us that he aced some aptitude tests, but we never actually see Kirk evince much starfaring aptitude; I found it hard to believe this character even showed up on test day. When we first meet him as a “wild” kid, it’s to watch him purposely drive a stolen hot rod over a cliff – this guy’s “natural” starship captain material? In what universe? (Oh, wait…) Like Spock, he’s basically defined by his angst (his dad heroically dies distracting a Romulan supervessel by letting it blow up his ship). Right up until the end, this clueless Kirk gets his ass handed to him every time, or gets lucky. But none of that’s Pine’s fault, and all that said, with immense shoes to fill, and even written as a buffoon, he holds his own here, conveying a curiously sympathetic arrogance, a sense of coiled energy, tenacity, and ego that you can see conceivably evolving into a parallel Shatner. Even if we never see him really tested in this movie. Which would have been better.
Zachary Quinto’s Spock obviously lacks the advantage of Leonard Nimoy’s iconic skeptical purr (a contrast that’s only underscored by a scene he has to play alongside the actual Nimoy). He’s been “modernized” as a sexualized, glowering tragic figure that’s pretty much the (bi-)polar opposite of Nimoy’s serene mystic. But his detestation of Kirk is pretty watchable, made clever and ironic by our recollections of the original characters’ rapport and, of course, by all we’ve read over the years about Shatner’s frosty relations with his former cast-mates. Whether by ballsy design or corporate neutering, the new Spock works, even if the stoicism we associate with him is junked at every turn: Uhura basically pussywhips him into letting her join the Enterprise crew, he lets Kirk infuriate him into calmly relinquishing command, and the story’s carefully timed tragedies shoehorn him into being perpetually grief-stricken and pissed off. But like Pine, you can see Quinto growing into the part with each line. And he has a great seething glare after Kirk gives him a booming fratboy clap on the shoulder.
The rest of the crewmates do capable work but aren’t onscreen long enough to make much more than a cursory impression. John Cho (Harold of Kumar fame) plays Sulu, a guy whose job is to compute nav points but who packs a sword just in case. Zoe Saldana’s Uhura is sexy and competent, in the manner of all modern blockbuster heroines; she has an ongoing “romance” with Spock, which means she leaves her post and kisses him for minutes on end whenever he leaves the bridge. Anton Yelchin’s Chekov gets to talk funny for a minute. Simon Pegg’s Scotty shows up near the end for a half-assed homage to Augustus Gloop, along with a diminutive alien sidekick who doesn’t do anything.
But the real scene-stealer is Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy, who scores incredulous laughs every time he opens his mouth. Casting Eomer as Dr. McCoy sounded like a casting decision made on acid, but Urban seamlessly Robert-Downeys into the role and wields a syringe with such zeal that a growing part of me genuinely wishes the whole movie had been about him.
Things I hate…The absurdly constant pileups of geographical happenstance: Kirk lives in Iowa, as does McCoy, right near a big canyon where they’re building the Enterprise, presumably because Iowa has lots of starship-sized canyons. Leonard Nimoy’s elderly Spock just happens to be hanging out in an ice-cave where Kirk just happens to be exiled by an angry young Captain Spock (why not just confine him to the ship’s brig?), with Scotty just happening to occupy a nearby parking garage with his sidekick and a Tribble. Bana by chance kills Kirk’s father, then waits 25 years and effortlessly happens on old Spock just so he can…do what again? And why would he let Spock, the presumed destroyer of his world, go instead of killing him? And why didn’t the Romulan strangling Kirk towards the end just let him fall? And what’s with all the deep chasms and spiky Magic Rock protuberances on the bridge of Bana’s mining-ship? And where’d he get all the firepower? And why would the Beastie Boys still be popular 300 years from now? And why’s the last battle so easy -- Spock just shoots a fragile metal column without any resistance? In this canon, the Vulcans are snotty and ill-defended and ostensibly deserve their demise. And I know this is a reboot and all, but why is every character so different in this timeline if the defining event, the destruction of Romulus, hasn’t actually happened yet? Why even have retcon and alternate timelines at all instead of simply establishing this as a new beginning, a la Batman? Oh yeah, Nimoy.
At the end, there’s a medal ceremony like the one from Star Wars, although unlike the alien bar scene, ice planet sequence, Ugnaught, world-destroying weapon, and father-son stuff also lifted from Star Wars, in this medal ceremony the crucial contributions of others like Sulu, Scotty, and Spock go ignored and only Kirk is rewarded. Which in a manifest destiny way also reminded me of the original series*. And which I suppose for an American summer blockbuster based on an old TV series is only logical.
*In Trek ’09 the planet Vulcan is destroyed, while the white man’s Earth is spared; wouldn’t it have put an interesting, genuinely egalitarian spin on things if those had been reversed.
| 50 |
| Vote |
