The young cast is mostly callow and TV-bland and the special effects don't quite seem worth that hefty price tag, but overall this is a presentable addition to the franchise.
Star Trek has remarkable freshness and originality for something so deeply familiar. And it leaves us confidant that a venerable piece of pop culture is in good hands, at least for the time being.
In going back to tell the Enterprise story from the beginning, Star Trek presses collective emotional buttons people didn't even know they had. At its best, the effect is like seeing life panoramically, past and future, simultaneous and magnificent.
Requiring little or no foreknowledge of Klingons and Romulans, this "Star Trek" is a grand equalizer, transporting everyone to a space where it's possible to just sit back and marvel at the starlit view seen from the Captain's chair.
With Star Trek Abrams honors the show's legacy without fossilizing its best qualities. Instead, he's whisked it off to a planet where numbing nostalgia can't kill it, and where the future is still something to look forward to.
The wit and youthful energy that's been infused into the new Star Trek should enable this venerable franchise to live longer and prosper more handsomely.
Bruce Bennett
Stop Smiling
March 17, 2015
A rather lazily imagined, though energetically executed pastiche of big screen sci-fi clichés seemingly appropriated at random from other films.