Review – Star Trek (2009)

I’m having a hard time reviewing this movie because I’m a fan of the TV series from the 60s, and this picture seems to exist for no other reason than to mess with the original. I don’t mind a little clever re-invention – such as back story for familiar characters, the sort of thing that’s been done with Batman to good effect – but this just presses the reset button and starts over. For example, whole planets that were crucial to the story in the series are here obliterated without a second thought. I kept expecting some kind of J.J. Abrams Lost trick, where it turns out the destruction of Vulcan was a Dharma Initiative mind game. But no, apparently they’re serious about screwing everything up. And while normally I’d be tempted to toss in an “at least the effects were impressive,” here I can’t even go that far. For example, the new Enterprise bridge set is much fancier than the original, but now it looks less like the utilitarian command center of a starship and more like a noisy food court in the Mall of Tomorrow. I understand the need for some deviation from the certainly-flawed Star Trek of my youth. But this isn’t the Joker re-imagined as a violent psychopath. This is the Joker re-imagined as a giant octopus who’s pissed off about a botched sex change operation. The only reason I can eke out a single star for this mess is the chance that I’m being meaner to it than it deserves because it disappointed me. See if desperate