A would-be good Star Trek movie, but let down with limp RPG video game story and insane amount of LEN GLARE

Rating: 1/10 (23 June 2009)

(Originally submitted on May 11, 2009)
I am not a Trekkie. I hate just about anything related to Star Trek, except the clever Part IV and the iconic The Wrath of Khan. I went to check this movie out because I was mildly impressed with the trailer, considering J.J. Abrams "salvaged" Mission: Impossible after that garbage of a first sequel.
I don't expect anything out of the ordinary in terms of storytelling. I go to the movies to escape pains of the real-life world temporarily, especially in terrible economic times. The story turns out to be a standard revenge yarn with the villains taken right out of Final Fantasy video games. Yawn.
And J.J. Abrams went way, way overboard with shaky and blinding cinematography. Every damn scene is filled to the brim with lens glare for...cool and dramatic effect. So what, it doesn't make an organic feeling. Only a few film directors know how to use lens glare to proper visually compelling effect in aesthetics -- and sparingly. Mr. Abrams' fetish for "moar" lens glare, even digitalized in some F/X shots, is nuts. Worse than John McTiernan. Extremely irritating for a viewer who know BS when he sees it. Slim down on lens glare coke snorting, please.
The characters are all cardboard cutouts of the better, more fleshed-out original characters played by "seasoned" actors. Even the amazingly "GQ" handsome actor Chris Pine looks and acts like a smug p-word in this movie. The movie bristles with barely concealed sarcasm in self-consciousness that doesn't appear to enhance or serve the story. J.J. Abrams made this movie to elevate Star Trek to "pop culture coolness" while ostensibly mocking the fans of the original with the attitude of the infamous William Shatner SNL skit beseeching the hard-core fans to get a life. The dumb, average audience nods in agreement while consuming buttered popcorn and sugar-loaded soda.
Star Trek re-boot was made not as a passion, but strictly to make megabucks at the box office. J.J. Abrams and company can roll in the dough and laugh. They can do anything to ruin Star Trek legacy by rendering it kitsch with the hot "Abercromie & Fitch" actors and latest F/X technology plus formula 1-2-3 script and directorial excess piling on enough lens glare to blind the audiences temporarily.
A visually, aesthetically and figuratively lame movie overall. And Abrams needs to scale down lens glare in his next movie. Metaphor of a holographic cocaine on film.
* out of 4