Unconvincing start of a new generation of Star Trek movies

Rating: 6/10 (24 June 2013)

As a child and teenager, I grew up with the "Star Trek: The Next Generation". While I was never a hardcore Star Trek fan, I did enjoy quite a few seasons of that series as well as "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". Still, the original series never really appealed to me. They always came off as outdated in so many ways I guess I outgrew them before I had the chance to get into them.
"Star Trek: The Future Begins" didn't really manage to impress me, largely because it's basically nothing but barely disguised "fan service" for the fans of the original series stretched in a thin two hour plot.
That plot evolves around two heroes : Spock and James T. Kirk. After a couple of scenes depicting their childhood, both meet each other as Starfleet cadets during a pretty contrived conflict and end up in a couple more conflicts until they realize they need to overcome their differences and collaborate to save the future of the earth. That pretty much sums up the whole plot.
Several supporting characters from the original series are also included in the movie, although they're given so little screen time and character development you barely get to know them at all. All the attention goes to Spock and James T. Kirk, and even these characters are barely developed beyond caricatures. The main protagonist of the story has been given a back story not just very thin but so far-fetched and random he felt more like an afterthought than an integral plot of the movie.
While the visual effects were as professional as one would expect of a movie with this budget, I also wasn't impressed by the movie when I tried to forget about all the plot holes and just tried looking at pretty pictures. Too much shaky cam, a ridiculous amount of annoying lens flares, awkward close-ups and an ADHD pacing gave the movie not nearly the amount of eye-candy I most definitely did expect of a movie like this, leaving me mostly disappointed by the time the credits passed the screen.
I did very much appreciate the movie's sense of humor, though, but jokes were too few and too far in between to be a redeeming factor.