FILM REVIEW: Star Trek

With frankly unacceptably high levels of fanboy excitement, I sat myself down in the Odeon Holloway last night to watch what has been, for my money at least, one of the most hotly anticipated new releases of the last few years - Star Trek.

The previous films had, to be honest, tapered into mediocrity, despite the sterling performances by Patrick Stewart, and had really lost direction. Nemesis had felt old, tired and flat - could this new film live up to the hype of the 'reboot'?

Coming as it did on the back of a fantastically produced trailer of staggeringly epic proportions, my expectations were high - very high - but then too, so was my anxiety - could J.J. Abrams and co really pull this off? Could you really successfully relaunch one of the biggest franchises in sci-fi? I was worried that such a treasured childhood series was going to be trashed down to the lowest common denominator (Transformers anyone?)

I was, let me assure you, not disappointed. Oh no.

I genuinely can't remember the last time I enjoyed a film so much, on so many levels. The production is utterly spectacular - the effects are flawless, the intergalatic visages breath taking, the costumes and make up perfect, the spaceships and cityscapes powerfully presented, and everything really just hangs together visually in a very satisfying way - there isn't a sense that the entire effects budget has been spanked on one or two scenes.

And yet if the film was just affects, it would have got boring pretty quickly. The real strenght of this film, running through it consistently, is the simply brilliant cast - it is pretty much flawless.

Each and every actor has encapsualted the essential nature of the character from the original series - update them certainly, but in a sense that has really renewed the energy and vitality of the entire franchise. Christ Pine cuts an excellent Kirk, cleverly balancing the arragonce, humour and decisiveness of Shatner's original, and the dynamic between Pine and Zachary Quinto as a young Spock was great to watch. At the same time, all the old favourites, Chekov, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu and Uhura have all been wonderfully cast.

Of course, coming off of the back of such a strongly character driven series as Lost, I was confident that Abrams would put together a winning formula, but in this film he really has excelled. The pace of the film is extremely well judged, and furthermore, the balance between action and humour is maintained expertly throughout - an important element which I think is central to understanding just why the Next Generation series of films started to wear so thin - they just weren't smart or funny enough. I really challange anyone not to enjoy this film, at least at some level - it's great entertainment, and exactly what a Star Trek film should be.

Overall, simply a great film with enough for everyone - fans will, like myself, find themselves wryly smiling at the clever winks to the original series and will be thrilled to see such a masterful resurrection of the series, and newbies too will enjoy the film simply because it is genuinely very, very good all round.

I'm already far too excited about seeing the next one.