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Star Trek

10/10

Stars: Leonard Nimoy, Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Young Spock), Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban(McCoy), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Simon Pegg (Scott), John Cho (Sulu), Anton Yelchin (Chekov), Ben Cross, Winona Ryder, Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Morrison, Rachel Nichols, Faran Tahir, Clifton Collins Jr

Director: J J Abrams

“It’s Star Trek, Jim but not as we knew it”. It's even better.

Cloverfield director JJ Abrams, along with screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, has boldly gone and brilliantly reworked what many must have seen as a moribund franchise. Result? A thrilling and spectacular science fiction actioner that opens on adrenaline-surging action decorated with superb special effects, and never loses its hugely entertaining impetus while vividly and convincingly bringing classic characters back to life as their youthful selves. Even non-Trekkers/Trekkies (you decide) cannot fail to enjoy themselves watching the youthful Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Bones and Scotty and other familiar USS Enterprise regulars once again saving the Good Guys – as is their destiny – from an intergalactic villain, in this case (scarily unrecognizable under his make-up) Bana’s truly evil Nero.

There’s plenty of exciting action and well-honed drama guaranteed to enthrall you (all right, I admit it, I’m a long-time Trekkie/Trekker who lost all sense of reality and all his critical functions when DeForest Kelley ushered me around the USS Enterprise sets for the first Star Trek feature being filmed at Paramount Studios back in 1979) but what makes this so entertaining is meeting the key characters before they found small and large screen fame.

Casting and performances are immaculate (even British actor Pegg standing in for Canadian James Doohan as Scotty is happily kept in check) while Nimoy – ingeniously worked into the story as Spock – is there to remind you how to bring a seminal character to life in a totally new but still relevant dramatic concept.

Enough analysis – Star Trek delivers even more than it promises even to the converted and should convert non-devotees. This is exciting and gripping moviemaking at its Hollywood best.

Original producer Gene Roddenberry would have been proud to see his classic creation revived and revamped and return in triumph to boldly go again, bright and burnished and ready to explore strange new worlds and new civilizations.

May Star Trek live long and prosper and be back in cinemas soon.

Alan Frank

USA 2009. UK Distributor: Paramount. Colour by deluxe.
126 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.

Review date: 04 May 2009