Wearing a trucker hat, battered blue jeans and an air of breezy confidence, Chris Pine walked through the Paramount Pictures studio lot like he owned the place but felt no particular need to show anyone the deed in his pocket.
It’s precisely that mix of fighter-pilot cockiness and surfer-dude Zen that you would expect from an actor who, as the leading man in “Star Trek,” has taken on the biggest challenge of any popcorn-movie star this summer: How to play James T. Kirk without imitating the role’s originator, William Shatner?
“That’s it right there, that’s the challenge,” Pine said on that November afternoon after a screening of early footage from the film, which opens Friday. “If I can do that, then we’re good.”
The L.A. native has apparently done just that, at least according to early reviews and a uniformly positive industry buzz that seems to frame “Star Trek” as this year’s “Iron Man,” a sleek summer movie with intense action, wit and surprising buoyancy considering all the heavy equipment taking flight.
The film begins on the day Kirk is born — the same day his father dies just 12 minutes into his first command as a starship captain. It follows Kirk through his daredevil youth and his Starfleet Academy career as a rakish Romeo with a need for speed and no love of regulations. Then it’s off into space, where he and the rest of thecrew must tangle with an angry Romulan named Nero.
Paramount, expecting big things, has already announced a sequel for 2011. Still, there are no sure bets in Hollywood, and while the crew of the USS Enterprise may live in the future, they may seem like ancient history to young moviegoers.
