SPACE: the final frontier. This is the maiden voyage of a shiny, new Starship Enterprise under the captainship of director JJ Abrams.

Its mission: to revitalise a flagging yet beloved franchise, to breathe new life into iconic characters; to boldly go where so many have gone before.

Written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who penned the recent reboot of Transformers,  Star   Trek  is a big budget reimagining of the series, exploring the formative years of Kirk, Spock and their interplanetary cohorts.

Ardent fans of the universe will take issue with some of the changes here, including a forbidden romance and a time-travelling narrative thread.

The film also lacks an imposing villain and two hours simply isn’t long enough to establish all of the crew in sufficient detail, but like the first X-Men, Abrams’s film is a solid building block for the future.

The score is deafening (take earplugs or pain relief) from the opening sequence.

When cocksure James T Kirk (Chris Pine) enrols at Starfleet Academy, he makes an instant friend in Dr Leonard McKoy (Karl Urban).

Some other recruits prove more difficult to win over, especially Spock (Zachary Quinto), until a Romulan attack on the Vulcan homeland unites the young men and women.

Star Trek is a boisterous adventure incorporating that most reliable of plot devices, a black hole, which allows the filmmakers to ride roughshod over the past.

Action sequences are orchestrated at breakneck speed, enlivened with slick digital effects.

Simon Pegg plays Scotty for laughs, providing comic relief from the bombardment of explosions, fist fights and edge of seat escapes.

Before this Star Trek even blasts off, a sequel is already pencilled in for stardate summer 2011. Set phasers to stunning.