Great review of Star Trek

by phil on Saturday May 16, 2009 8:41 PM

Star Trek. Star Trek. Star Trek. It's cracked what, 95% on Rotten Tomatoes now. It's certainly the movie of the moment. I want to use this opportunity to continue my campaign to promote The New Yorker.

Anthony Lane clears the back pages of The New Yorker to give a two-page review of Star Trek. Though not providing a glowing review, Lane still "nails it" with his observational wit.

I thoroughly approved of his bedding an extraterrestrial female with green skin, eco-sex being all the rage two centuries from now.

When describing the Romulan (bad guy) space ship the Narada:

Looks like a dozen Philippe Starck lemon squeezers clumped together and dipped in squid ink.

I didn't even know what a Philippe Starck lemon squeezer was, but I immediately got the image in my mind.

Philippe Starck lemon squeezer:

Fan rendering of the Narada:

Similarly, our heroes keep clinging to brinks by their fingertips, as if to prove that a proper cliffhanger needs a genuine cliff.

I watched Star Trek a second time and didn't realize that Kirk is literally in a cliff-hanger four times.

On the other hand, it does mean that we get more of Zachary Quinto, whose very name sounds like the sacred text of a superior race, and who, in his role as the youthful Spock, is the most commanding reason to see this film. He alone prepares the gray matter. Bowie-thin, solemn but not humorless, tacitly quoting Sherlock Holmes, and nipping around like a sixties groover in his skintight costume, he wipes the floor with Kirk, while making time for a Vulcanizing smooch with Lieutenant Uhura (Zoë Saldana), the resident linguist, who is said to have "exceptional oral sensitivity."

Zachary Quinto is now the man of the hour. As he's been described on Facebook, "Spock is hottt!"