Pubescent Trek

Rating: 4/10 (21 May 2009)

I've seen all the Star Trek movies, all episodes of the original series, and all episodes of The Next Generation. When I first heard about the premise for the new film, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand I thought it would be interesting to see how the original gang came together and some background of the original characters. But on the other hand I wondered why they were reverting to the past instead of moving forward with the saga.
The opening scene was visually stunning. And, visually, the film was a treat, comprising a heck of a lot of detail. But when the pubescent characters were gradually introduced running around recklessly with their teenage hormones, I began rolling my eyes. If the casting director had chosen good actors, things would have been much different. Simply put: the actor who played the young James Kirk can't act. Many of the actors were television stars. And bringing second-rate TV actors onto the big screen is never wise.
The other thing that I resented was the young Spock character. The actor did a fairly good job, but what was so admirable about the original Spock and arguably the draw of the original series was his lack of emotion. And using this against Kirk and especially Bones' emotional reactions was appealing. Any show works best when the characters are diverse rather than redundant. When you employ cultural imperialism by making Spock give in to the inferred superiority of Earth or human culture, you not only make things less interesting but give people a bad taste in their mouths. The film seemed to be saying, "Let's test Spock's logic by destroying inferior planet Vulcan and his mom and have him finally give into our superior human ways by showing lots of emotion." What adolescent stupidity! Finally, time travel has been done too much in Star Trek films. The story could have been just as good if the Enterprise had encountered a formidable ship from an alien race of the present. They did it obviously just so that they could have the older Spock in the movie. I thought it would have been better had they just opened with the old Spock as a narrator, reminiscing about old times and then saying, "I bet you are wondering how it all came together and how the original crew came together on our first mission." And then the movie goes into the story.
To sum it up, visually the movie was fun at times. But with annoying teenage recklessness, bad acting, Spock's outbursts, cultural imperialism, and tired time travel, this was a bad Star Trek movie.