Star Trek (2009)

Essential within its own group, and the single most accessible thing on this page. It assumes nothing whatever, and it was designed that way: J. J. Abrams has been open that he was not a Star Trek viewer and made the film for people who were not either.

The reboot is handled more carefully than it is usually credited for. Rather than overwriting the previous forty years, the film has a ship arrive from the future, change an event in 2233, and split the timeline, which leaves everything that came before intact and running in parallel. It is a piece of in-fiction housekeeping that lets a new cast play the same characters without anybody having to pretend the old ones did not happen. Leonard Nimoy appears to confirm it in person.

What it is, is a propulsive adventure film with excellent casting. Karl Urban's McCoy and Simon Pegg's Scotty are impersonations done well, Zachary Quinto plays Spock as somebody in visible distress, and the central friendship is rebuilt from a hostile start. The pace is relentless and the lens flares are a running joke for a reason.

What it is not, is interested in the thing the franchise is usually about. Nobody debates an ethical problem, the villain is a man with a grudge and a drill, and the plot runs on coincidence of the kind that strands two characters on the same ice planet within walking distance of each other. Watch it for momentum, not for ideas.