To label STAR TREK one of the most eagerly awaited science fiction movies ever is to understate the case. The first of the returning STAR WARS franchises might outstrip it in expectation terms, but nothing else in the history of the genre. With the increasing failure of VOYAGER and especially ENTERPRISE TV shows, the pressure to create a successful new version of a franchise that has reinvented itself more times than Madonna was also huge, so it was a brave man that would take up such a poisoned chalice. Who would risk being the man who killed off STAR TREK? The man with the guts was JJ Abrams.

First off, the new STAR TREK is a rollicking ride of a space adventure that doesn't let up from the opening moments. JJ Abrams doesn't have to worry about the characters being equal to the story because they've been tried and tested over three seasons of the most influential science fiction show of all time and so he just gets on with the job of telling the story. By bringing the Romulan bad guy, Eric Bana's rather formulaic Nero, back from the future to alter time, Abrams and his writers sidestep the need to follow STAR TREK CANON. From the moment the firestorm brings back the giant Romulan ship, time is changed, so they can pick and choose what they want reference and what they want to ignore. It's a tactic that might anger the die hard fans, but it opens up the possibilities and allows the story to bring in those unfamiliar to STAR TREK who might otherwise have just stayed away, unwilling to join in on a story already much has been told about.

The actors have a very difficult task of paying homage to the original actors that created their parts, but making them real, rounded and their own. To a man (or woman) they succeed admirably. Chris Pine is the archetypal cocky, angry young man, but by the end he is employing body language that just screams William Shatner's Kirk in his prime. It's not impersonation, just an excellent performance that channels what went before (or after - damn these time travel stories). Zachary Quinto gets to be far emotional as Spock than Leonard Nimoy (who gets an effective cameo role) was ever allowed, but then that's part of his character's plot arc and it is inkeeping with the story. Karl Urban does more with less as the third leg of the STAR TREK tripod, Dr Leonard 'Bones' McCoy. More grumpy than angry, he gets more than his fair share of good lines and Zoe Saldana gets to bring Uhura out of the supporting players to square the triangle, being given far more limelight than her predecessor. Simon Pegg's Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott is the comic relief that's a little too broad, whilst John Cho and Anton Yelchin get their moments to shine as well as the less important Sulu and Chekov.

The effects are, of course, big and shiny and seamless, though it would be nice if someone somewhere would stage an action sequence where the camera wasn't bouncing around all over the place, just to show that it is still possible.

It's not perfect, of course. There is a big attack of coincidences in the middle section (Kirk just happens to get to stranded on the planet where future Spock is stranded - and the latter being stranded at all flies in the face of the bad guy's wish to see his pain -, Kirk is chased into the very cave where this Spock is hiding, there just happens to be a Federation outpost nearby and that just happens to contain Scotty and all the equipment required to beam Kirk and Scotty back onto the Enterprise even though it is travelling beyond the speed of light billions of miles away, something never done in any version of STAR TREK before or after), and the spectacular ending doesn't do justice to Eric Bana's Nero, making you wonder if there was some big personal fight scene that didn't make the final edit.

However, the problems are far outweighed by what works and works well. You don't have to know STAR TREK at all to enjoy it, though there are incidental pleasures for those that do. Like it's leading character it's big, brash, bold and has an immense sense of adventure and fun. Make no mistake, changes notwithstanding, this is STAR TREK and it just might be the start of something old and something new.