Hazy cosmic jive

Ok, it wasn’t Citizen Kane or Battleship Potemkin but the feature film entitled simply Star Trek proved an unexpectedly pleasurable treat at Gloucester’s impressive Guildhall Arts Centre last evening. It was one of those prequel things and not, I venture, based on a true story. The grateful audience learned how the youthful Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhuru and the rest of the merry company came to work together on the good ship Enterprise. This aspect of the film was rather charming and worked well; the actors (including local hero Simon Pegg portraying Scotty with élan and vigour) developed their characters with rewarding subtlety and warmth. The main plot concerned, er, black hole devices, magnetic fields, time travel and nasty aliens called Romulans and was both reasonably easy to understand (except the time travelling bit) and remarkably pleasing on the eye. The two hours raced by. There was a happy ending. An infinitive was split. Star dates were ululated. Iconic tunics were worn. Engines were given all they’ve got. Concepts were decreed ‘logical’. Beaming-up went on gleefully. And phasers were set to ‘Stun’. Marvellous.