Without Leonard Nimoy, this would be really good.

Rating: 8/10 (4 June 2010)

Star Trek chronicles the lives of James T. Kirk and an alien named Spock. There lives intersect when they are both going to pilot school at the same time. Both end up on the USS Enterprise and must try to captain the ship after the main pilot dies.
Most of the characters in Star Trek are interesting and well acted, particularly Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto. Both young actors give career making performances and have good on screen chemistry as Kirk and Spock. Also, the rest of the crew including "Bones" and Sulu are very well cast and everyone in the movie seems to fit right into their roles.
The action is very exciting and the plot is good up until the biggest quality drop off in a movie I think I have ever seen. Kirk is sent to an ice planet that the older time traveling Spock happens to be living in a cave on. I'm serious, that actually happens.
This older Spock proceeds to interact with the events of this time and tell characters things that will make them fulfill their destiny as he knows it. At one point old Spock goes up to young Spock and tells him "hey, you should be good friends with Kirk your friendship will really pay off." Aside from his mind exploding from talking to a older version of himself, why would young Spock listen to him. You can't just tell someone to be friends with someone else, that has to happen naturally. Old Spock then says he is going to go to their home planet and help them rebuild; so apparently their are going to be two versions of Spock in the same time line, how ridiculous is that.
Also, Scotty doesn't figure out the formula for beaming people up, old Spock gives him the formula. That isn't cool, it's cool that Scotty thought it up, not that someone from the future told it to him. Scotty's kooky hairy friend doesn't help matters either.
The idea to include Leonard Nimoy really subtracts from the quality of the movie. I was completely loving Star Trek up to this movie sinking, poorly conceived, terribly transparent plot point. It's extremely obvious that the only reason this was put in is so J.J. Abrams can service the fans of the original series. He thought it would be cool to include Leonard Nimoy and have him reference events from the show. Unfortunately, events are meaningless if the only reason they happened is because a person from the future made them happen.
In my opinion this truly awful idea turns what could have been a classic sci-fi picture into just a pretty good one. Don't believe the hype, this is barely even in the Top 10 of 2009. Hopefully Nimoy won't be in the second one and it will be what this should have been.