Trek

As someone who has left his grubby fingerprints on the "Star Trek" franchise, I figured I'd chime in on the new J.J. Abrams reboot. Even before it opened, the film had my heart for casting Simon Pegg as Scottie, but the rest of the cast is note-perfect as well. I love the redesign of the Enterprise, inside and out, and in fact I wish they'd slowed down a little to let us see more of it. As for the people who gripe that the bridge looks like an Apple Store, I say Apple Stores only wish they looked that good.

The time-travel excuse for the reboot is quite clever. Not only does it allow the main characters to take all their positions on the Enterprise over the course of a few days, it in essence frees the franchise for the burden of its history, while retaining the characters and basic situations that have always been the core of "Star Trek"'s appeal. (And best of all, it means that Kirk didn't die on that stupid bridge at the end of "Generations.")

On the other hand, the story is not so hot. In fact, it could be argued that there is no story. The film is filled with set-pieces which could be excised without the slightest impact on the plot. There is a massive infodump in the middle of the film which could charitably be described as inelegant. And the villain (named Nero, and echoing precisely nothing about his Roman namesake) basically just sits around waiting to pound the good guys and in general Do Bad Things. His situation -- the captain of ship full of Romulan miners waiting 25 years to get revenge -- is sort of interesting, but its ramifications have not been thought through at all.

But of course, the bad guy is just an excuse for the good guys to unite in a common cause. And at the end of the film, when Chris Pine sweeps onto the bridge in full Kirk mode and calls out "Bones!', the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I forgot all about whatever deficiencies the past two hours might have had.

Get these guys back out in space as soon as possible -- and next time give them a story about the human condition.