Director: J. J. Abrams
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana and Alice Eve.
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Runtime: 132 mins. Reviewed in May 2013

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Rating notes: Action violence

We are into it instantly. We are in the middle of a mission, Kirk and Bones fleeing from a primitive, spear-brandishing tribe, with Spock descending to deal with a fiery-fierce volcano. This review is based on a 3D version on an IMAX screen with pounding score.

But, the tribe and the volcano are not the main story. In London, a Starfleet expert, John Harrison, wreaks destruction on a vast plant. In San Francisco (both cities 200 or more years hence looking futuristic, of course, with tall buildings and speeding vehicles), the Starfleet conference room is attacked by the same expert. He is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is having an increasingly important film career in films but also as Sherlock in the modernised television movies. Yes, another British villain! But, as we listen to his speeches (and he has quite a few), we realise that Americans don’t have the diction, accent or voice modulation that a clipped, clear, rounded, vowel-perfect British voice can give to such rhetorical interventions.

But, back to the crew and the plot.

We are four years on from J.J.Abrams first Star Trek film which brought the franchise alive again on the big screen and which brought a younger cast in to replace, with as many similarities as possible, the orginal crew of Starship Enterprise.

Chris Pine became Captain James Kirk and continues his adventurous, sometimes pig-headed, leadership of the Enterprise – with some scenes of American superiority at its gung hoest. Zachary Quinto is a very effective new Spock. Simon Pegg provides humour and his scientific know-how as Scotty (with some beaming ups – or beamings up), Zoe Saldana is something of glamorous Uhura, John Cho is a Korean Sulu, instead of the original Japanese, Karl Urban a wry Bones and Anton Yelchin fiddling with an Eastern European accent as Chekov. There is another addition to the crew, Alice Eve as another expert, daughter of the Starfleet admiral (Peter Weller).

So, there is quite some satisfaction with the crew. There is more than satisfaction with the set and production design, the vast sets of the space ships and their docking bases, the enormous interiors. And, as for special effects and stunt work, they are most impressive. Plenty of action.

At one stage we see Leonard Nimoy on the screen, the older Spock talking to the younger Spock. In probing the identity of John Harrison and his cargo of cryogenic allies planted secretly in powerful space torpedoes, the older Spock makes a vital link with the past, a connection in characters, plot and issues with the films of the past. Which, of course, makes it that much more interesting.

Lots of heroics, of course: Kirk prepared to give his life in the radiation core of the ship to save his crews’ lives, which gives Spock the opportunity to do invidividual battle with Harrison, Uhura coming to the rescue. Bones helps dismantle torpedoes as well as looking after health. Scotty races and uses his wits so that Kirk and Harrison, in flying suits hurtling through space can rendezvous on the admiral’s ship. Sulu has the chance to be acting captain.

Mix all that together, especially in a plotline that is always clear, even when it is convoluted, and you have a spectacular screen experience, vast action along with 3D cameras which enable you to see every contour, every line, facial hair on Kirk’s face in minute close-up!

It has been announced that J.J. Abrams’ next project is directing Star Wars Episode 7. On this evidence, no wonder. And, as fans might say, ‘Bring it on’.