Star Trek

(by Kevin  Bowen) Lately I’ve been wanting a film that comes out punching, that doesn’t dally, that just drops the audience into the middle of intense action and lets us swim for our ever-loving lives. I’m talking about a movie that knows how to open a movie. The last one was "The Dark Knight." Finally I get my wish with JJ Abrams’ re-booted "Star Trek."A tentacled spaceship with overwhelming firepower. A Star Fleet vessel limping and crumbling to pieces. Dozens of evacuating shuttles. And a baby being born. It’s the Odessa Steps at warp speed. And we instantly know that this one is set for stun.And that’s just the beginning, because what we get is an exhilarating string of these things. What Abrams accomplishes is to rival Steven Spielberg’s capacity to stage wide-canvas action scenes, dotting the screen with multiple thrillers taking place in multiple locations simultaneously. We shift among them with swiftness, smoothness and ferocity.So we go from a starship to high-speed parachuting, to a swordfight on top of a mile-high drilling platform. We move from a single cockpit to a starship bridge to watching the battle in slow motion from a million miles away, with spacecraft and torpedoes slowly charging across the eternal night.It’s awe-inspiring. I can’t say enough. So let’s shower Abrams with praise. After an overhyped transition to the big screen, the "Lost" impresario finally delivers, re-charging what appeared to be a dead franchise. Returning us to the iconic characters, times, and spirit of the original television series of the sixties, the film invigorates the earliest adventure of Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, and the rest of the crew of the Starship Enterprise. (read more on SCREENCOMMENT)