Star Trek is the origin story of Captain James T. Kirk, Spock and the crew of the USS Enterprise before they had boldly gone where no man had gone before. The film stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg.
SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk in "Star Trek"
Star Trek begins its journey with Captain George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth) taking over U.S.S. Kelvin as acted captain after its original captain, Captain Robau goes on board Romulan’s ship. Captain Kirk is ordered to autopilot the ship after evacuating the ship, however, due to limited resources, the ship is not able to autopilot itself and thus, Kirk sacrifices himself by staying in the ship. His wife is giving birth in one of the capsules ejected from the ship when he is in the ship colliding with Romulan’s spacecraft and he saves 800 lives. Captain Robau is killed by Nero (Eric Bana), the Romulan villain when Robau tells Nero he doesn’t know of a man named Spock.
Back in the future, in Iowa, young James T. Kirk (Jimmy Bennett) is a rebellious teenager. He drives an old vintage car at a very high speed and is even chased by the officer until he has to jump out from the car when it reaches the edge and falls off the mountain. When James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) grows up, he picks up a fight with some Starfleet cadets over a girl named Uhura (Zoe Saldana). Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), the captain of the Enterprise whom has stopped the fight invites Kirk to enlist himself in Starfleet. He mentions Kirk’s dad whom has saved 800 lives by being the captain of the starship for only twelve minutes.
James T. Kirk shows up the next day and together with Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban) and many others enlist themselves as they aboard U.S.S. Enterprise. Kirk tries to pass the Kobayashi Maru test by cheating after failing it three times. The test is devised by no other than Spock, a half-Vulcan and half-human (after his father married a human). When called for an emergency action onboard the newly created U.S.S. Enterprise to battle Romulan villain, Nero, Kirk is left out as he is being suspended for cheating. His buddy, Bones fakes a medical emergency to get Kirk on board the Enterprise.
Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in "Star Trek"
In the Enterprise, Kirk realizes the starship is in danger when he remembers the past occurrence and tries to warn Captain Pike, but he is initially being ignored. However, when Uhura and Spock support his statement, Captain Pike begins to trust Kirk. On a mission to land on board Romulan’s ship, Captain Pike promotes Kirk into the First Officer while Spock takes over as acting captain. Kirk, Sulu (John Cho) and Chief Engineer Olsen (Greg Ellis) try to land on the giant drill belonging to the Romulan but Olsen does not land successfully and is killed in the process. Despite eliminating the enemies on the drill, Kirk and Sulu fail to save planet Vulcan as Nero manages to release a red capsule into the center of planet Vulcan, which transforms itself into a black hole absorbing planet Vulcan. While Spock manages to save his family, he has lost his mother and 6 billion Vulcans have perished.
Back in the Enterprise, Kirk disobeys Spock’s order and is expelled from the ship into a deserted planet. There, he has to run for his life when a huge monster gives him a chase but he’s safe when another man scares the creature away with a torch — that man happens to be future Spock. Then the older Spock (Leonard Nimoy) shows Kirk how he ends up in the deserted planet. He is unable to prevent a sun from going supernova and destroying the Romulan home planet in the process, thus, he is blamed for the tragedy by a Romulan miner named Nero. Spock then brings Kirk to an abandon starfleet where he meets Scotty (Simon Pegg), an engineer with a Scottish accent. His knowledge of teleportation is not perfect and the aged Spock just knows the equation and thus, Kirk and Scotty manage to teleport themselves into the Enterprise.
Kirk challenges Spock’s instability and takes over as captain of the Enterprise when Spock punches Kirk before he resigns. When the Romulan sets their target to Earth, Kirk and Spock set their feet onto the vengeful Romulan ship and together, they manage to destroy the Romulan and save planet Earth.
Overall, Star Trek is surprisingly delightful to watch despite not being a Trekkie fan. Zachary Quinto gives an outstanding performance as Spock. Nonetheless, Chris Pine is also brilliant in portraying a young captain in James T. Kirk and together, these two actors give Star Trek a new breathe of life. Marvellous.
My ratings: 9 out of 10.
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