Breaking the mold
Pine's James T. Kirk, on the other hand, has to search for the good inside the bad boy, and he does it brilliantly, without question my favorite hero this summer. In Kirk, Pine embodies the kind of confidence-infused machismo that made Harrison Ford's Han Solo so appealing in "Star Wars" years ago. Even before Pine's Kirk beats the Kobayashi Maru test, you know behind those startlingly blue eyes is a strategic brain to be reckoned with, to say nothing of the sexual potency that vibrates around him.
It is always a risk to take on a deeply familiar character, particularly one like Capt. Kirk, whom William Shatner breathed a very specific life into beginning in the '60s with the TV series. Even John Belushi's "Saturday Night Live" satire of Kirk couldn't have been so rich without the Shatner blueprint. Pine has to figure out how to create Kirk anew without alienating the cult of the old and is greatly helped by a fine-tuned script from Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.
Though Pine has been around since 2003 in smaller roles -- remember him in last year's "Bottle Shock"? -- it took "Star Trek" to launch him into the public consciousness. From the moment he settles into the captain's chair, a new Kirk is born. This Kirk feels as if he has just run off the football field after executing a flawless Hail Mary. He is the jock who can deliver in a tight spot and go home with the prom queen after the game.
There is a special place in the movie universe for those who find vulnerability inside the brawl, Brando in "On the Waterfront" being the epitome. True, Pine never has to dig all that deep, but the power of those eyes make you long for a movie that will demand it.
Everyman as hero
The thin reed of LaBeouf comes with a very different sort of power. Not unlike Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man, LaBeouf, as "Transformers' " Sam Witwicky, embodies the boy next door. He's the not-quite-grown kid who shouldn't have to carry so much on his still awkward shoulders, but then that's just the hand he's been dealt.
Sam is the sort of hesitant hero that requires LaBeouf to keep his feet firmly planted in both the ordinary and the exceptional at all times, something that LaBeouf pulls off with aplomb.
It's there in his panic-stricken eyes as he faces off against a 10-story machine that appears to be indestructible, and it's still there as he fends off the advances of a too-hot-to-handle blond. LaBeouf has figured out how to let Sam live in that netherworld where he never pushes past his fear but never runs from it either.
