In fact in every detail the film, directed by J J Abrams, stays scrupulously loyal to the style of Gene Roddenberry’s 1966 television original, from the stirring orchestration by Michael Giacchino to the tone of sunny American optimism. So it strikes me as a non-Trekker (or Trekkie?) at any rate.

Nostalgia is everywhere: for example, the women all wear mini-skirts, whether they are the nurses in the medical bay or Lieutenant Uhura, the sultry communications officer (Zoe Saldana), on the bridge. Rather like in the original television show, as I seem to remember, the doctor – Leonard «Bones» McCoy – solves most medical emergencies with one of two devices: a metal cylinder which he briefly jabs into the patient’s neck to administer an injection, and a hand-held scanner with a revolving hoop at the top that he passes over injuries to heal them.

To the non-specialist most of the 10 Star Trek feature films that came after the television series are instantly forgettable, boring and over-complicated.

Exceptions, to my mind, are Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – the best of the lot – and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which was distinguished by a stellar cast including Christopher Plummer and David Warner as Klingons and Kim Cattrall as a Vulcan. According to a scurrilous rumour, during filming Miss Cattrall posed for photographs on the bridge of the USS Enterprise dressed only in her pointy Vulcan ears, only for Leonard Nimoy (sensible Spock) to tear up the photos for fear of a scandal.

Star Trek reboots the franchise, as it were, in the same way Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005) did for the superhero with the utility belt and cape, by going back to tell the story of the origins of Captain Jim Kirk and Mr Spock.

Obsessives will doubtless relish the back story of the beloved crew of the Enterprise _- James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine), half-human half-Vulcan Spock (Zachary Quinto), Mr Sulu (John Cho), Chekov the Russian (Anton Yelchin) and Montgomery «Scotty» Scott (Simon Pegg), the chief engineer with the funny Scottish accent. With all these youngsters, the prequel feels reinvigorated. In fact, most of the actors look a good deal younger than the original cast in the Sixties. William Shatner was well into his 30s when he made the television show.

The film opens with the portentous events surrounding the birth of Kirk. His father has taken over the helm of a starship that is heading for certain destruction when it is sucked into the force field of a monstrous enemy vessel that looks like a vast steel man-eating flower. Kirk senior bravely ensures the safety of his heavily pregnant wife, who gives birth to their son while escaping on another ship, in addition to 800 other crew members. The elder Kirk himself dies in a massive explosion.

Fast forward to the plains of Iowa: a floppy-haired farm boy tears crazily along a highway in a vintage Corvette, chased by a Robocop-style policeman on a floating hover-bike. The lad is Jim Kirk. Evidently the absence of a father-figure has caused young Kirk to develop a rebellious, self-destructive tendency. Is this young man, who we discover is fantastically intelligent, frightened in case he fails to live up to his father’s reputation?

Meanwhile, on the planet Vulcan another young man faces a comparable psychic struggle: Spock has been brought up as an outcast, a result of his mixed parentage of Vulcan father (Ben Cross) and human mother (Winona Ryder). Vulcans, of course, are an affectless and logical race. Spock, however, has the weakness that he experiences the emotional fluctuations of humans, inherited from his distaff side: Ryder is spot-on casting as his mother, since she’s an emotional sort of actress.

Spock and Kirk are destined to meet. They join the «peacekeeping and humanitarian armada» that is the Starfleet and soon find themselves on the Starship Enterprise together with all those other familiar crew members bound for an emergency involving the planet Vulcan.

A villain is about to drill a black hole into the planet and cause it to implode, killing billions of Vulcans, in an act of personally motivated revenge: this is Nero, a bald, genocidal Romulan who has a squashed nose and a punkish face covered in tattoos, and is played to nasty effect by Eric Bana, who gave a brilliant performance as sociopath «Chopper» Read in Chopper. In Nero the Romulan Bana creates a decent, meaty villain.

The plot unfolds with plenty of thrilling fights and chases, the fights typically being medieval-style hand-to-hand tussles – at high altitude for added peril – and using weapons such as swords. The tentacled aliens make the fresh creep. The heart of the film, though, is the characters, particularly the rivalry, contrasting personalities and eventual bonding of Spock and Kirk. Simon Pegg does a lively turn as the unappreciated Scotty. He gets to say: «I’m givin’ it all she’s got, captain!» Nero’s diabolical plan includes tinkering with the space-time continuum. This allows the original Spock – Leonard Nimoy – to appear beside the younger, stiffer version of himself and offer mellow words of advice.

Star Trek has special effects by Industrial Light and Magic, is ear-bashingly loud and doesn’t flag. Given the limitations of the form – it’s a summer blockbuster aimed at adolescents of all ages – it does everything fans could want.