Okay, so I know it's become a joke that J. J. Abrams likes to use lens flares - a lot - in his movies, but this is just silly. There's literally at least - at least - one flare in every scene of 'Star Trek (2009)'. Every. Single. Scene. It's so overwhelming at times that it's like trying to watch a film in the middle of an ongoing rave while a hard-boiled detective shines a flashlight in your eyes and demands you tell him what the heck this metaphor is... basically, it's so distracting that it's not only annoying, it's actually headache-inducing. It's so unnecessary and frustrating that I'm genuinely tempted to dock a whole star from my rating, but doing so wouldn't actually achieve anything because ratings are arbitrary. I need to make it clear that it's not just a stylistic flourish I don't gel with, it's an active disruption that pulls me out of the affair on more than one occasion.
Okay, flares aside, is this a good reboot? Well, yeah. It's a bit unique when it comes to how it justifies its reimagining of its source material, as it opts not to be a simple new interpretation which - for all intents and purposes - rewrites the original (in terms of canon, at least) but instead introduces some black hole shenanigans that allow the flick to take place in an offshoot of the original timeline and therefore sit alongside it in the wider lore. Basically, it acts as both sequel and remake, gifted with the goodwill of its fandom and unburdened with the need to retread old ground. Aesthetically bringing the series into the 21st century to varying degrees of success, the feature feels relatively generic in terms of modern sci-fi blockbusters. With a focus on slick, fast-paced action and charismatic central characters who quip as often as they dramatically turn to camera, the affair remains relatively breezy for its duration. While it sometimes tries too hard to be cool and ends up being corny, it typically understands the appeal of its IP and balances its character work with its set-piece creation well. Its action is entertaining, its cast enjoyable, and its world well-crafted. It features a lot of CGI, which is to be expected, but it also features plenty of large sets for its players to run around in and feels surprisingly tangible overall. The story is relatively simple, but it effectively sets up its characters and sees them undergo their required arcs with panache. It's not particularly thematically interesting, but its less intellectual approach works decently well and it's not as if the film is mindless. Its just that it places less emphasis on heady concepts or interesting ethics, but that's okay. It's a different sort of feature to (most of) its predecessors. Its often quite funny, it's very well-cast, and it's generally entertaining. It's a charming, light, well-crafted and typically fun experience that does more-or-less everything it needs to and looks pretty good while doing it. I just wish it didn't feature so many damn lens flares.
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