Star Trek!!!!!

Star Trek (2009): starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Ben Cross, Winona Ryder
Hollywood likes making money, but has run out of original ideas. This is why they mine old tv shows and video games and 80s toys for new movies. This is why we have re-makes of superhero movies and re-launchings of "franchises" (who wants to watch a movie when you can watch a FRANCHISE?). Sometimes this marketing ploy produces a great movie (The Dark Knight, for example), and other times, it rapes our childhood (as anything Shia Lebouff is connected to seems to do). George Lucas' Star Wars prequels really weren't "bad" movies. If anything, they attempted to appease the old fans too much, as I'm sure George Lucas thought "Wouldn't it be great if Darth Vader had built C3PO as a child?". Attempting to show the origins of all his great Star Wars characters, and even just simply trying to include as many of the original trilogies' characters in the new movies turned out to be a fatal flaw with the prequels, and a major reason why they're so loathed today. So why does the new Star Trek get a free ride? Oh yeah, because it takes place in an "alternate universe". This also accounts for why the characters don't even have to look the same. That all these characters, despite the difference in ages, all happen to meet in the starfleet academy, and that they all happen to be assigned to the Enterprise right off the bat, seems a little stretch in credibility. I happen to be a fan of the original series, but I'm no trekkie, and i'm not going to hold this movie to some slavish interpretation of the original concept. But it does beg the question, why make this movie at all? Obviously money is the main factor, but why can't someone come up with new star trek characters, or even a wholly new space movie for that matter? Is hollywood really that bereft of ideas? Anyway, my review for the film is as follows: it's a suitably enjoyable space adventure, with all the explosions and monsters requisite for a summer blockbuster, and yet even with all the explosions and aliens, I still felt a little bored by the 2nd hour. Maybe it was because there was nothing new being presented here, everything's been done before. The movie served more like a checklist to mark off each time an original star trek series moment was referenced, as we wait for the moment when Spock says "live long and prosper" or wait for the vulcan nerve pinch. Zachary Quinto does a great job as Spock, which is to say, he plays it almost exactly like Leonard Nimoy did on the original series. Most of the actors are trying to do their best imitations of the previous actors' portrayals, and that brings up one of the major flaws in this movie and in re-launching old characters at all. Much like when Vince Vaughn tried to re-create Anthony Perkins role as Norman Bates in the re-make of Psycho, you can't top a performance by an actor who's spent the rest of his life trying to escape the typecast that that performance brought him. It's insane to try. In any event, who am I to argue with 10,000 critics who've called 2009's "STAR TREK" the very greatest movie they've ever seen? You should probably go watch it and decide for yourself. I mean, seriously? Kirk and Sulu skydive out of the Enterprise down to the planet Vulcan!!! How cool is that!?!? Also, if this trend continues, I'm looking forward to Trans-former 2's perfect 100% positive rating on rottentomatoes.com....
**** out of *****