Good Effort with a few problems

Rating: 7/10 (19 June 2009)

After some high praise from co-workers, finally got around to watching this new Star Trek saga getting launched. And I liked it although I wasn't head-over-heals for it. I see some similarities in the changes akin to the way the James Bond series was changed. There's a lot of sleek new looks and some fairly good acting, but in giving up or moving on from some the older formulas or patterns in it's series, it loses some things. I thought the story was pretty interesting although not original. The direction seemed pretty good as were the effects. I thought Zachary Quinto nailed it as young Spock and Karl Urban did a good job as young Bones. By far the best-done scene was the jump scene with the drill - extremely captivating and as much or more so than any Star Trek scene in any Star Trek movie. Some of the problems though were Eric Bana as a bland Romulan Nero. I don't know all the story and past details but the Romulans didn't look very interesting. Chris Pine as Kirk was just - OK. The creators in general tweaked characters that they should've stuck hard and fast to, and the acting either needs to completely clean slate the old casts mannerisms/ways of speaking or really make a strong effort to try to incorporate/mimic them. Instead we have some actors sometimes sounding like original actors and sometimes not - inconsistency. Some of the character tweaks were in poor taste too such as Uhura and the whole romance angle. And the having a Beastie Boys soundtrack in the beginning is trashy and UTTERLY misplaced. Maybe if you're a trekky of the original Star Trek's cerebral story lines and science-fiction you might be disappointed, but I was receptive and ready for the changes and ready to take most of the changes at face-value. I would agree the movie loses some of it's thoughtful pensive nature of the original series which actually does seem to detract, but still recommended to see in the theater for the action-oriented.