Oh no... if only i could have been given a Vulcan nerve pinch

Rating: 3/10 (2 January 2010)

I will start of by saying this is my first review. Shame it takes a bad movie to get me fired up enough to send one.
First the good news. It's a fast paced (Star Wars-esquire) movie... lots of special effects, and lots of action. If you knew nothing of Star Trek, then you might enjoy this quite a bit... but... i'm not convinced that it stands up even as a non-Trek movie. There's too many holes. Too many strange, lazy writing. I know it's not easy writing a good story... but please... at least try.
My Top 10 Problems with this movie:
(1) Kirk is jerk... OK... that was in the original as well, so i guess that's not so much a problem as a reasonable rendition. But please... if this was the military - people like Kirk would have never made it through the academy. He flaunts authority, deceives people (he didn't wonder what would happen to the poor girl he deceived into cheating for him), and he endangers people's lives because HE thinks he's right.
(2) The whole Nero thing is a complete mystery. As pointed out previously - wouldn't your first reaction be to try and save your planet... rather than going on a rampage to kill as many people as possible? What was his motivation? And what was he doing when Romulus was destroyed? Also - why can Spock and the Romulan ship survive going through the Black Hole... but nothing else can?
(3) Then there's the 25 year gap... of course there needed to be a plot device to link the baddie from Kirk's father's demise and Kirk himself. But really - they were in a Klingon prison for 25 years?... and then they very kindly let them have their ship back (in original condition)? I mean... how did the Klingons get them in the first place?... what with their ship being so advanced and all....
(4) Kirk being abandoned on a ice cube of a planet... hold on... isn't that essentially a death sentence? Nice one Spock... obviously messing with the time stream lets you blow off some steam. Be interesting to see how he'd explain that one back home...
(5)Spock is Nero's arch-nemesis... he's been waiting for 25 years (and he knew when he'd pop out how?)... and what does he do. Gives him front row seats. On a different planet (that seemed to be in a different system, but i'll stand corrected on that)... where he has front row seats. Hmmm... interesting, close enough to see all the gory detail, but far enough away that the planet isn't pulled into the created black hole too. Sweet. And it's good of Nero to just let him stay there... to allow him to move on to another unexplained revenge sequence. Anyhow that's pretty FANTASTIC revenge planning after waiting 25 years
(6) All it takes for Kirk to be made Captain is to make Spock "emotional"... oh - that and to have been made first officer after illegally boarding the Enterprise, and then being thrown off for mutiny. The one thing about this... what would be the punishment for taunting a Star Fleet captain after watching both his mother... and his WHOLE PLANET being sucked into a black hole.... yeah... he really should get his emotions in order. Not like Kirk, who would never act out of instinct or emotion?
(7) It's great when you use the destruction of a planet (Vulcan) as a plot device. That's OK.. they can always go back in time next installment and fix things up like they never happened.... alternatively... if you believe the alternative histories thing... then all Nero would need to have done is warned his people about the disaster, and none of it would have happened (in this time stream). Coz if you think it matters that it's a different reality, then his vengeance on the new Vulcan is pretty petty.
(8) If you hand't worked it out... time travel sucks as a plot device.
(9) How the hell much "RED MATTER" does one person need? Couldn't they transport this stuff somewhere (perhaps not... that's why they needed the mining vessel...)? Couldn't they have at least tried to beam more people up whilst they were waiting for Spock to re-unite with his parents? Speaking of transporter stuff... so Scotty invents the warp- transporter... by Spock telling him how to do it. Interesting. And why did they only send over two people to the Romulan ship?
(10) How did the mining vessel get so NASTY anyhow? IT's A MINING SHIP... not a war-fighting craft. I guess those Romulan's are a bit uppity.
All up... it was a barely passable movie (much preferred Terminator Salvation as a new SciFi installment!) - but as a Star Trek it really blowed... and for story reasons that could have been readily rectified if they hadn't just "made stuff up". I'm not a Star Trek nutter... but i just like good story-telling.
However - given the number of high scores here, i guess that people that like stories that make sense (at least internally consistent) are not that common these days.