I Make Movie Review-Star Trek

'Star Trek' cannot cure the common cold. It cannot raise your children, pay your mortgage, fill up your car, or patch up the economy. It is not, contrary to popular belief, the Second Coming. What this movie is, however, is two hours of peerless, light-as-a-feather, uninterrupted fun. I couldn't be more surprised. When I saw 'Trek' on TV, I was unimpressed--a bunch of men shouting orders and talking philosophy in what appeared to be spatulas with rocket engines. Leave it to 'Lost' empresario JJ Abrams and writers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman to take the often soggy TV series (and it's 525, 600 reboots) and make a movie as fly-by-the-pants energetic as a shot of caffeine straight to the heart. Beginning with the opener-in which the mother of Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) gives intergalactic birth while a starlit battle rages around her-the movie plunges into warp-speed and never loses loft. Within minutes we are introduced to Spock (Zachary Quinto, who deserves some awards attention for adding some mournful emotion to the proceedings), Bones (Karl Urban, sharp as a tack), Chekhov (show-stealer Anton Yelchin), and the rest of what will eventually be the Enterprise Crew. This time, they're up against Nero (Eric Bana), a cold-eyed, punked-out baddie who wants to wreak havoc on the galaxy as revenge for...something that happens 130 years in the future. Just go with it. It's not the plot that matters here. It's the gut-level ride this crew takes you on. Every action scene plays like a promise the next big dogfight will have to deliver on-and they all do, especially an interstellar skydive-turned-swordfight that's probably the most enjoyable and volcanically geeky duel the movies have given us this millennium. And there are moments of genuine depth and wit (particularly from Simon Pegg's Scotty and the beginnings of the classic Spock-Kirk dynamic) that let us see the band of brotherhood and teamwork that binds those aboard the starship. Winona Ryder and even Leonard Nimoy show up for smaller but equally important parts. Sweet. Does it all work? No. Bana is never really any kind of scary as the villain, and I almost needed a dictionary to understand some of the wonky space jargon. But this is a movie where the beginning has you on the edge of your seat, the ending gives you goosebumps, and 99% of what's in between works--and a movie like that, especially in the heat of the summer, is worth cheering. A-