Not entirely Roddenberry

Rating: 7/10 (7 May 2009)

I found this Star Trek prequel mixed. Spock and Kirk and co. back in their Academy days. Huge plot potential. Is it well done?? Yes, and no.
The 2009 Star Trek is more complicated in plot than the 1960s style, more difficult to follow, and the characters resemble Melrose Place on steroids. People assume command without structure, risk taking has become more prevalent than ever, and Roddenberry's 1960s humanist-style idealism has been a little compromised. A little harsh maybe, but the 1960s Star Trek was visionary in terms of its humanist ideals, whilst this relies more on basic Hollywood action formulas than vision and substance. There are good, mild references to issues concerning unconscious racism, but not much else. There is no real build up of tension in this film (incidentally, Kirk's 'dramatic pause' has long gone from Hollywood, which I always liked), or mysterious twists in the plot, just one action scene blasts onto another. Outside of Spock and Kirk, character development is weak, including the villain (a time-disaffected Romulan), who gets about 10 seconds of back story.
For some reason it's rather crowded on the bridge now-there are no open spaces on these ships anymore. Spock and Kirk's relationship has changed-there is more disagreement, and less general co-operation. Kirk's entire first foray into space is essentially as a stowaway and illegal, yet he is able to assume command of a starship, with barely a whisper from anyone else. Time travel scenarios now go on so often in these Star Trek plots that there are people doubles everywhere, where you can bump into yourself, young or old, and the whole 'stability of the time-line concept' is a bit of a joke (although the original series did introduce these conundrums). Villains now have the entire time scale to plunder and pillage, especially the past, which is weaker technologically. Thankfully, reality isn't like that (excepting real-time cultural imperialism).
I wish they wouldn't use hand held cameras in every single action scene, so that you can no longer see what the hell is going on. It's dizzying, nauseating, and frustrating. Why does Hollywood always have to overplay a good idea? Hand held shots originally gave a feel of proximity and authenticity (usually in a documentary sense), but now every damn action scene has it. The brain actually has a natural 'image stabilizer' (you don't see dizzying images going up and down and all around you, do you-unless the images are moving at such speeds and to the point where the brain can't compensate anymore-which is not the typical action scene 'moving speed'), so one doesn't experience such shaking, dizzying, and moving images at normal action speeds; therefore overplaying the hand-held camera effect actually becomes self-defeating-you actually feel more like you are behind a camera, which is the exact opposite to what is intended. This is damn annoying, and overdone. I wish they would limit it to extreme action and speed changes (eg like a car accident), where it belongs.
Good special effects, an excellent opening scene (where we see Kirk's father and mother), a reasonable time-travel and coming-of-age plot, but I would have liked it as more circumspect and introspective (think Blade Runner, Batman Begins), humanist (1960s Star Trek), or ' basically gritty' (12 Monkeys), than Melrose Place or Top Gun in Space. But at least it's better than the overly simplified and dramatically weak Star Wars prequels.