It’s hard not to throw a rock and hit someone whose life has inexorably been changed forever by Star Trek.  That statement couldn’t be truer for Adam Nimoy, son of Leonard Nimoy whose documentary For The Love of Spock hits select Cineplex locations all across Canada tomorrow.  While it’s hardly a perfect film, it certainly serves as a fairly level handed and appropriate tribute to the hard working character actor who told generations of fans to “Live Long & Prosper”.

In an act of cinema that is bound to unite ‘Trekkies’ across all gender, creed and generational lines, For The Love of Spock celebrates the uniqueness of that man that was Leonard Nimoy.  A man who tirelessly gave audiences and fans everywhere an iconic character that will as long as the moving image exists.

I’ll be the first to admit that it isn’t always the easiest to separate the fan boy from the critic in me, but director Adam Nimoy who has been cutting his teeth in television for years has crafted a balanced effort with For The Love Of Spock as it generates a legitimate amount of respect for Leonard Nimoy; the character actor, husband and father as much as it does the iconic character of Spock.

With scads of behind the scenes footage, candid testimonials and archival interviews with the man himself up until his death, we get a genuine glimpse at who Leonard Nimoy was as a human being.  Adam Nimoy didn’t shy away from showing some of the warts in his family tree if at the very least because it’s what his dad would have wanted, and it actually makes him a better story teller for it.  While fans we get unimaginable delight from some of the behind the scenes anecdotes of the series and the films, the genuine core of this film is when we get to see what kind of genuine human effect (both positive and negative) playing Spock had on Leonard Nimoy throughout his career.

As much as we’d all love to have pointed ears, and know how to do a Vulcan neck pinch the magic of Spock and what made him so relatable to fans is that he was this strange and unique individual who was doing everything he could to keep him in check and be accepted by society.  We love Spock because on many levels we all relate to him and with For The Love of Spock we get the very logical marriage of what made this character so special and the man who played him, even more so,

It’s for the fans to be sure, but it works reasonably well even if you have lived under a rock for 50 years and never seen an episode of the adventures of the Starship Enterprise and it’s intrepid crew.