Star Trek

Star Trek
Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, Simon Pegg, Winona Ryder & Leonard Nimoy

From an outsider's perspecive, the renewal of the "Star Trek" establishment beams into gear with fun, excitement, thrills, and a excellently written script. Director J. J. Abrams installs some of his usual Felicitian/Lostian love triangles into the mix as well as proving that his ability to create a high-class summer hit is well beyond the living room tube.

Obviously, being a galaxy-questing story, "Star Trek" makes use of its weaponry and action; yet, unlike the "Star Wars" fleet of films (talking about the Episodes I through III), "Trek" becomes more than just cheap thrills and spills. The scene where Sulu (John Cho), Kirk (Chris Pine), and some other guy zoom down and parachute onto a platform of some drill that's breaching the atmosphere and earth of a planet is startlingly intense.

Although Zachary Quinto has been born to play Spock, Chris Pine as the roguish, angsty, and not to mention completely hilarious James T. Kirk steals the show. Pine's portrayal of a could've-been Luke/Anakin Skywalker doesn't mope and throw out cheeseball lines like Mark Hamill, and he doesn't whine like a little baby as Hayden Christensen so annoyingly did in Episodes II and III. Pine creates Holden Caulfield gone badass for himself - and it works.

With all this comparing and contrasting to "Star Wars," "Trek" can't live up to one thing: the dark side. Vader and all the other Darths make "Wars" a symbol of good and evil, God versus Satan, "Paradise Lost", "Romeo & Juliet". It's Shakespearean. "Trek's" badguy, played by Eric Bana, is a sideshow compared to the rest of the film, and in no respects comes close to the evil encompassing "Wars", but like I said, that's really the only part.

Oh, one more thing - I like Quinto better than Nimoy, and WTF Winona? Can't headline a movie anymore?

Grade: B+