Reboot? No! - Old boots!! (MANY SPOILERS)

Rating: 2/10 (14 May 2009)

Like most human beings on the planet, I've seen most Star Trek offerings in one adaptation or another, and there's nowhere you can go to escape its pervasive influence - as Shatner discovered once in India. I grew up seeing the first airing on UK TV of TOS and was utterly mesmerised and awe-inspired. The effects were crap, the starships unconvincing, the camera-rolls (as the ship shook) comical, the studio-sets glaringly obvious, made-for-TV-style evident, but... you know, the stories were powerul and full-bodied and a lot of thought were put into them.
This movie is the reverse. Great effects, astonishing setpieces, convincing starship interiors, sweeping panoramas... but the storyline really sucks big time. The individual actors performed excellently, and they delivered their characters with dedication and reverence to the franchise, but come on... really? Would Kirk actually usurp the acting captain by out-arguing him? Would Spock "lose it" rather than just call security and have Kirk put in the brig? He never "lost it" in TOS unless a biological or chemical agent or mind-control was involved (where we'd see others from his perspective through a fish-eye lens). Would Kirk really "by chance" meet alternative-timeline Spock and be transported back to the Enterprise? And if Spock disposed of Kirk so coolly the first time, using his Vulcan nerve-pinch while Kirk struggles with security, why couldn't he just do the same again? Would the "old" Spock meet the "young" Spock and tell him "Good luck" (how lame is that?) in a post-modern stylie? Neither is there a convincing villain of substance or merit that glues the story together and it employs that hackneyed trick that all modern directors use when they want to justifiably alter a back-story: a black-hole. And Nero? Doesn't he and his minions have the same homogenised look and feel of all the other Next Generation villains? Where the hell were the Klingons? The Romulans?! They hardly appeared in TOS. And if the Vulcans lost their homeworld, then where did Spock go to get resurrected in The Search For Spock?
I know it could be argued that it advances the franchise's progress. Or even that it's a unique movie in its own right and should be accepted on its own merits. If that's the case, then why all the trailers and hype and buildup on sight and sound references to TOS icons? Why not just hype it up as an independent, new-concept, re-interpretation movie? Because the producers, directors and distributors know it would've tanked and needed to spend 7 years in the DVD/foreign markets to recover its losses. That's why. Look at how the incredible hulk concept suffered because of Ang Lee's Hulk, and just how long it took before the distributors/studios were willing to develop the far superior and more reverent Hulk 2.
This movie is unfulfilling tripe. It contains storyline elements that undermine all the TV shows and movies. The plot is shallow as a puddle. Eye-candy. Pure eye-candy. That's all it is.
The directors will have to work really hard and make a lot of amends if they want my respect for the alleged sequel said to be scheduled for Summer 2011.