Star Trek: The Future Begins
12A, Nationwide
Listen, I’m no Trekkie, I don’t speak Klingon, I’ve never boldly been anywhere in the least bit exciting — my fear of motorways has always hampered me horribly in this respect — and I don’t like action epics but Star Trek: The Future Begins is quite fun. I’m not saying it’s fantastic fun, or the most fun you can have with your clothes on or, if you’re my age, off, but it is certainly vastly smarter and more enjoyable than most films of this type. Yes, there is a lot of bish-bash-boshing and, yes, the plot is barely comprehensible and, yes, there is a baddie intent on global domination rather than, say, free dental care for all and a happy-smiley sticker, even if you are a wuss. (Just once in my lifetime I would like to see a baddie intent on that, plus I would like a sticker.) But? It also has some spectacular special effects and, more importantly, some pretty decent emotional hooks, particularly in the form of Spock (Zachary Quinto) whose film this might actually be. Spock, being half-human and half-Vulcan, is torn between the two worlds, and struggles to be as ruthlessly emotionless and logical. I haven’t given much thought to Star Trek over the years and do not intend to now, but I should confess that I have always wondered this: when Spock has a bad dream, is it a logistical nightmare?
Anyway, enough of all that, and on to the plot, or at least what we can understand of it. Well, as there have already been six TV series and ten feature films, there was only really one way the franchise could go, and that is backwards. So this is a prequel, which opens with an admittedly breathtaking pre-title sequence showing James T. Kirk being born as his Starship captain father goes to his death, thanks to our baddie, who is Nero (Eric Bana) from the planet Romulus. (Never trust a Romulan, my mother always told me, and I can see she was right.) Nero has a tattooed face and drives a craft which cuts though space like a vast, spooky, clanking squid. The special effects are totally brilliant during the first 12 minutes, and actually had me thinking, ‘This might do it for me. I’m off to the next convention!’ But the visuals are never as good again, or it may have been that I just got too used to them. Either way, they just stopped being quite as thrilling or, to put it in Klingon: ‘Tera’nganpu’ juppu.’ Actually, I did do some Klingon at school, and it’s amazing how it comes back to you.
After the opening, the film focuses on Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock, first as children then as cadets at the Starfleet Academy and finally as crew aboard Starship Enterprise on its maiden voyage. We have, by now, been introduced to the rest of the gang: Uhura (Zoe Saldana); Dr Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy (Karl Urban); Sulu (John Cho), and Scotty (Simon Pegg). And, because the plot involves a time travel element of the kind I would explain to you if only it had made sense, we also have Leonard Nimoy playing an older version of Spock. Nimoy is elegant and touching, even though he whistles through what appear to be badly fitted dentures. What’s that all about?
Aside from Pegg, who does camp it up for laughs, the film plays it straight and doesn’t go in for any cheesy self-referentiality or even irony, which is good. They made Harrison Ford do irony in the last Indiana Jones film and, my dears, I didn’t know where to look. No, this takes itself seriously, which isn’t a bad thing, because it wouldn’t have what emotional depth it does if it didn’t. Pine is fine as Kirk, energetic, dishy and dashing, but as I said this is Spock’s film, largely because of Quinto’s quietly thoughtful and strangely sexy performance as a conflicted man. I kept wanting more Spock and less bish-bash-boshing — in fact, less of everything else, particularly the gratuitous CGI monsters and yet another action sequence culminating in Kirk dangling perilously from some precipice. This is not my kind of film — I like my movies to be inaction-packed — but as far as these films go, it is probably more watchable than most, and if that’s not good enough for you, what can I say? And what can I do? It’s not like I’m going to come round your place to explain (well, I will, but you’ll have to send me a route using A roads only).
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