rated PG-13

With the exception of entire races of Klingons, Andorians, Romulans, Vulcans and, naturally, Khan Noonien Singh, has anyone noticed that the biggest villain in the Star Trek universe is James Tiberius Kirk? As brash hot-blooded bastards go, it’d be mighty tough to top this guy. He works for nothing, yet gets everything he wants. Swaggering blithely about in the neutral zone between self confidence and flat-out douchebaggery, he appears as a tragic transporter accident melding Will Hunting and the Joker. He’s a chauvinist, womanizing rebel without causality—an undefeated corn-fed quarterback who tricks, cheats and deceives whenever it strikes his fancy, and though historically court-martialed, imprisoned, exiled and generally beaten about the head and face daily for his efforts, he always manages to weasel out of any real consequence. He gladly hands most everybody he meets new reasons to hate his guts, and just keeps on smirking while he does it. All the engineers of the 24th century couldn’t invent a singularity that could out-suck the gravity well of Kirk’s impenetrable ego.

It’s important to differentiate, as we are treated to director J.J. Abrams new vision of the forces that came to bear in the evolution of this iconic miscreant, the character of Jim Kirk from his famously pompous portrayal by William Shatner. The Shat certainly brought a distinctly “Rocket Man” quality to the role, but beyond the 80-odd episodes of the original series and a handful of poorly performing films, The Kirk, with no help from Bill Shatner, has been actively marauding the known universe in countless novels, comic-books, fan films and even slash fiction for decades, and no matter the media, his greatest trick might lie in how consistently he gets cast as the good guy. Turns out, as the Han Solos, Mal Reynolds, and Jack Sparrows of the world would evidence, folks dig a good scoundrel at the helm. The gradual failure of the expanded “Star Trek” franchise, including “The Next Generation,” “Deep Space Nine,” “Voyager” and “Enterprise,” may actually be rooted in the previous show-runners’ cowardly cleavage to the mundane reaches of political correctness. By refusing their newer crews any suggestion of Kirk’s “we come in peace, shoot to kill” attitude, they effectively stripped all the fun out of the whole thing.

Enter J.J. Abrams. He and his geek squad of scribes have finally decided to Ctrl/Alt/Delete the previous “Trek” canon and just start from scratch. Like the best Starfleet captains, they show a singular and unsentimental aptitude for recognizing what to jettison to save a tanking vessel.

While ingeniously utilizing the most threadbare of Trek plot devices—time travel—they’ve succeeded in creating an entirely new timeline parallel to the known events of the previous series, even allowing for a brief but important cameo by Leonard Nimoy as “Spock Prime.” The newly forged fate of Spock’s home world is a Joss Whedon-level game-changer immediately illustrating the filmmakers’ intention of re-writing all the known rules, while cherry picking the bits they want to keep. Re-equipping their Kirk, as played by steely-eyed newcomer Chris Pine, with a black coffee, born-in-battle (literally) philosophy, they’ve kept the cowboy and ditched the diplomacy. The Enterprise, though now sporting over-fattened Cadillacy warp nacelles, is at once recognizable as the Starfleet flagship of yore (let’s call it a “Hot Roddenberry”).
More importantly, they’ve managed to perfectly preserve the acid sense of humor between the principals, allowing a terrifically fresh balance of Spock’s (now played with seething undercurrent by “Heroes” Zachary Quinto) cerebral bitch slapping, Bones’ (fantasy film favorite Karl Urban) curmudgeonly sermonizing, and Kirk’s leap-without-looking mentality. It really sharpens things up, and, for the first time in a long, long time, gives the audience good reason to pay attention.

Also, in an unashamed nose-thumb to the series’ small-screen origin, Abrams shot his version to great cinematic effect in full widescreen scope format, deploying heavy doses of bright blinding lens flare, breaking through the perimeter of the frame to present a spectacular, if occasionally overwrought, impression that this fabulous poptimistic future is just too freakin’ bright to capture within the constraints of a conventional movie screen. The sound design’s sputtering, liquid volleys of staccato phaser-fire and groaning starship hulls would seem specifically evocative of the better scenes of “Star Wars” (no small coincidence, as Trek’s newest behind the scenes crew member is long-time Lucasfilm racketmaster Ben Burtt). Taking cues from recent fan fave “Battlestar Galactica,” the frenetic, kinetic external combat scenes in the void of space all retreat into a dramatically muted silence, allowing Michael Giacchino’s rumbling, resonant new score to take center stage. Except for a few familiar “ping…chirps” in the background, the combat itself has completely traded out the plodding “Red October” submariner mode battle tactics for far more engaging “Top Gun” style dogfights.

With all the retrofitted modification at work, there’s some comfort for the stalwarts that fate still appears to play a hand—Kirk’s predecessor will always end up in a wheelchair, the red shirts will inescapably die like bugs on a zapper, transporters will inevitably fail whenever the story stalls, and Kirk, god bless his mischievous little heart, will forever be a self-serving, boldly-going, double-fisted scoundrel. And we’ll just keep following him anyway. Set phasers to rock.