Stars: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, John Cho, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Winona Ryder, Leonard Nimoy
Running time: 126 mins
Rating: ★★★★

THE failure of the last Star Trek movie seemed to spell the end of the Kirk, Spock and the crew of the Enterprise. There would, it seemed, be no more boldly going anywhere in the future.

But you can’t keep a good franchise down. Hollywood won’t let it lie if there’s a hope of making just a little bit more money. The revived Superman didn’t fly too high but Batman did in his most recent Christian Bale incarnation.

Neither got it as right as director JJ Abrams, creator of Lost, has done with his reboot of the Star Trek series. He’s taken what Spock would undoubtedly call the logical route – gone back to basics and the beginning of the whole thing as James Tiberius Kirk and pointy-eared Spock meet and clash as Space Fleet cadets in training.

First, we have a preamble in which Kirk is born during a battle in space. No wonder as a young man he’s a rebel without a cause – a James Dean type in a fast car pursuing even faster women.

Logically, Spock should be sailing through life, but being half-VulcaN and half-human causes an emotional tug-ofwar within him. The film delivers on the level of nostalgia, action and character with fresh young faces filling the shoes and tootight T-shirts of the Enterprise crew.

The plot – something to do with a nasty wanting to blow up the Vulcan planet – is an adequate means to introduce the regular characters as the spanking new SS Enterprise steers a course to intergalactic disaster.

In Chris Pine’s hot-headed Kirk and Zachary Quinto’s level-headed Spock, Abrams has found the perfect pair to helm the action. Karl Urban is instantly in medical officer Bones McCoy’s grouchy mode.

Our own Simon Pegg adopts a Scottish accent as chief engineer Scotty, Zoe Saldana makes a seductive Uhura and John Cho shows Sulu as more of an action man than before.

Anton Yelchin has fun as 17- year-old whiz kid, Chekov, whose accent is played for laughs. You try saying “warp speed” when you have trouble with pronouncing w.

Aussie actor Eric Bana, a former Incredible Hulk, fills the baddy’s boots as the Romulan Nero, although he’s not much more than a standard blockbuster villain.

We mustn’t forget that one of the original cast puts in an appearance too – Leonard Nimoy who, through the miracle of time travel, shares scenes with the actor playing his younger self. Other remixes of old shows have been content to give familiar faces little more than cameo roles. Here Nimoy’s older Spock has a key role to play in the unfolding of the story.

It may be the last we see of Nimoy in Star Trek but I suspect the rest of the Entreprise crew will be back for more big screen adventures. I look forward to boldly going with them.