average, not lasting impression, bad use of clichés, predictable plot.

Rating: 5/10 (9 July 2016)

NOTICE: I try to respect the work of other people, so be aware that anything I write is a personal opinion and I don't believe in an absolute definition of "good", "bad", "touching", "decent", etc. Each person responds to different approaches, hence the need of different professionals. What an amazing diversity makes us humans! That being said, when I write a review giving bad scores I mean no disrespect.
First of all, let me state that I'm not very familiar with the Star Trek franchise. That is different from saying I'm not a Star Trek fan, because such statement would imply I have a major knowledge about the franchise. However, as a sci-fi lover I know the basics (a few names of places, characters and some background story). That being said, let's judge the movie. When I measure a how good a movie is or isn't I take a few things in consideration. Among them, the 5 most important are:
·Plot - SPOILER AHEAD - One thing some writers don't get right: If you are going to use time travel in your plot, try to do it in some innovative way, or at least make the time travel secondary to something more interesting. Simply using time travel to create the classic "alternative reality" paradox feels not dense. END OF SPOILER The comic relief is not well placed, the story is quite predictable, the characters are not believable, which leads to the next topic:
·Good or bad use of clichés - If your are going the cliché way, give me some good characters. Make the clichés merge within a few aspects that will create at least a little illusion of uniqueness, so we can be delighted by that amazing familiar feeling, yet still feel that we don't quite know exactly how every single move of the characters will be. There's nothing wrong with clichés. Really. In fact, it is maybe impossible to effectively avoid any use of 'em. But there are many ways of using it with more expertise.
·Movie's relevance within it's genre (a.k.a. movie tested against time) - Some movies make a mark. Sometimes they only have an awesome story but lack special effects, sometimes they are all about special effects and forget the story, sometimes they are extremely epic, sometimes they are just plain simple but well put together as a whole A few movies have it all. In sci-fi movies I tend to expect a good plot, or good special effects, or exotic locations, or at least one memorable character... None of it achieved in this production. If you watch "the Matrix" today, more then a decade and a half latter, some things will look dated. Even more if we are talking about "Blade Runner". However, you like it or not, both made their marks when tested against time. The examples could be many, but not this particular "Star Trek" movie.
·Special effects (if applicable) within the time of its release - Not bad, but not out of the ordinary. Since we can't always recreate the "Jurassic Park" or "Terminator 2" awe, just having decent effects is enough to grant a high score here, which is the case.
·Atmosphere (music and sound effects immersion, photography, filming style) - When overused, the atmosphere of a movie can give the impression that it tries to make up for the lack of quality of the story. It happens in Nolan's movies a lot (please, I'm not saying that they have or don't have decent plots, it is just my opinion that it may give the stated impression). Again, when underused, the atmosphere may give a slow paced or boring sensation, and sometimes that's desirable in a given movie. Since in this title it was used just as a car paint (it has to be there and that's the extent of it), no high score here.
·Conclusion - As a non Star Trek expert I had the impression that every character presented was trying to give old fans that "oh, nice, look how Spock is amazing this time!" comfortable feeling. As a fan of other sci-fi franchises I hate when they do that and prefer when characters are presented in a more natural way. And, when not familiar with a given franchise, I feel like that new guy who doesn't know any in-jokes and assume I'm loosing some content. Either way, it is a not very good approach. The empty and predictable plot, characters that don't feel real and overall boring atmosphere make up for a not impressive movie. It may be an interesting production for some fans, although I think opinions among them will be divided. I like to think that there is much more to Star Trek, so I'll be watching older movies and series to check if I'm right.