Review: Star Trek (2009)

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Genre: Science-Fiction / Drama

This review will be short and sweet: appropriate, I guess, for the material on which it meditates - but perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself already. At its start, Star Trek (2009) introduces itself to be a searing melodrama, filled with heavy metaphors about purity and sacrifice and with overripe emotions that derive from overacting and overhyped scenarios. The old-story about the abandoned child - one that practically defines the entire Disney filmic canon - and that of the unlikely friends and that of the hesitant hero are by far not new entries into the world of storytelling, filmic, literary, or otherwise; and the fact that the franchise sees it fit to go out of its way, back in time, to invest its audience in dry recapitulations of those tropes is telling enough. So, I will stop here with the lambaste. Props are due only to Zachary Quinto, who manages to make a "human" out of his young Spock - as ironic as that may sound - and to the young Anton Yelchin (above), who brings a bit of comic light-heartedness that is still, at the same time, grounded - even during the midst of most "grievous" of battles. My last comment: Michael Giacchino, shame on you, for letting your music be prostituted out so, to mend the deep flaws in the visual-storytelling capabilities of this film's men at the helm and behind the lens.

Grade: D, entertaining perhaps but entirely unsubstantial.