My review of Star Trek
Clearly, the Star Trek franchise had reached an end. With the last movie making hardly anything at the box office and the Trek TV series facing an ever dwindling audience -- Enterprise, actually cancelled -- something had to be done to the franchise that would reinvigorate it.

The new Star Trek movie was made with that intention. Does it achieve that?

Yes. It succeeds with great spectacle, turning Star Trek into space opera on grand scale full of grade-A special effects, charismatic characters and action-filled spectacle. Basically, it becomes Star Wars.

The ever-dwindling Star Trek die-hards may have a problem with this as the Trek that has existed for four decades has been contemplative and, at the best of times, intellectual (at the worst, ponderous and boring). There's none of that in this movie and what you get is ACTION, ACTION, ACTION (pretty, occasionally silly, eventually wearying) so that, somehow, even the Transformers movie seems more staid than this flick. But I get that modern audiences expect in their summer tentpole movies more bravura entertainment so old, head on its shoulders Trek is dead. New Trek is adrenalin filled, fast and furious and rather witless. (As self-serving as it is, can I just point out that Dark Knight managed to be adrenalin filled but very clever, too - maybe tentpoles don't need to be dumb...)

To be clear, I had a lot of fun with it but it's far from perfect.

I loved:

- beautiful effects; they just looked terrific and the ships were magnificent
- the "bullet" warp effect -- now that's velocity
- the drill-platform sequence

I liked:

- Chris Pine as Kirk -- I found him to be fun and likable.
- Zach Quinto -- far better than I thought he was going to be
- the new Chekhov -- reimagined as a brilliant tactician. Nice.
- the weird engineer-midget who seems like a character out of Star Wars.
- Karl Urban as McCoy. Yea, it was an imitation of DeForest Kelly but he does get some of the best lines.
- Vulcan's fate. Good luck on your future!

I didn't love:

- A major villain written in such a shallow manner. Kahn remains safe as Star Trek's greatest villain. Nero felt like he shouted a lot, didn't have a lot to say and was never given the chance to be interesting.
- A lot of plot holes, not the least of which what did Nero do for twenty-five years. He's reactionary and psychopathic -- does anyone really think he just twiddled his thumbs for half-a-century? They were trying to tie in Kirk's "origin" with Nero's arrival but it feels really awkward. Also, why the fuck is Earth, home of star-spanning empire, defenseless. There are no other ships and no defense network. Really? So the entire fleet was laid waste?!
- Kirk on the ice-planet sequence. Felt like a studio note: "add more action!". It really never belonged

I kind of hated:

- Uhura. I was fine with the connection to Kirk but they didn't lay the groundwork for her relationship with Spock. She just seemed to be a sexual toy and wildly inappropriate.
- So old Spock was abandoned on an ice-planet that's closer to Vulcan than Earth is to its moon? Why didn't Nero just hold old Spock aboard his ship so he could witness everything from there? It makes little sense.
- Lens flares. I get it. You like lens flares, JJ. Stop it. Please. The bridge already looks like an Apple store -- I don't need lens flares too.
- Engineering is a refinery now? Ugh -- all those pipes felt stupid.
- Why does it feel like there are 14 people on board the Enterprise? I barely got a feeling of any other crew.
- Vulcan's fate. Damn, I liked that world.
- Red Matter. Yay, sci-fantasy super fluid!

To sum up:

Non-Trek fans will love all the eye candy and the quick pace.
Trek fans will love seeing their favorite universe really come alive for the first time but might be disappointed because it's not smart sci-fi.

In any case, I look forward to a sequel.