Worthy of being called Trek but comes up short against the best in the series..

Rating: 8/10 (24 May 2009)

I have a confession to make. I am a Trekkie... Not the kind that attends conventions sporting fake pointed ears, but one who has seen all of the movies more than once and most of the TV shows. I'm going to do part of my review in a compare contrast format. The movie I'll be comparing it to will be The Wrath of Kahn, universally regarded as the gold standard of Trek movies. Many reviewers are going so far as to call this new Trek the best of all the Star Trek movies. I feel that is going a bit too far and I will argue why its not. I'm going to break it down into a few basic categories.
Villain
Star Trek: Nero The Wrath of Kahn: Khan
Winner...Kahn by a landslide. Both had good revenge motives but Kahn will go down as one of the greatest sci-fi baddies of all time. Riccardo M put down a riveting performance while Eric Bana was pedestrian as Nero. Nero could have benefited from more screen time and better scripting so the character could have developed more. Aside from a short explanation as to why he was ticked off, we never got to fully understand what was going on in his head.
CGI/Special Effects
Winner: The Wrath of Kahn. I just didn't get the wow factor from Star Trek as when I first saw Kahn. TWOK's special effects were revolutionary for its time. They still hold up 27 years after the fact. When you look at Star Trek, you say "nice CG". When we were younger and watched Kahn, we were just all blown away. The use of models and organic methods of special effects just achieve something more three dimensional and realistic.
Score
Star Trek: Michael Giacchino The Wrath of Kahn: James Horner
Winner: James Horner. The Wrath of Kahn score is generally regarded as one of the best Sci-Fi movie scores of all time. A superb score will elevate a movie to an entirely new level and that is just what it did. The score for the new Trek is almost pedestrian enough to bring the movie down a bit. The main theme is nice and very catchy if not a bit underdeveloped. The Vulcan theme is beautiful but underdeveloped as well. That's pretty much it and what we get is a lot of repetition of the same material for much of the film. Memorable action music, a staple of the best Trek films, is absent from this movie.
Acting
Star Trek: Chris Pine and others The Wrath of Kahn: William Shatner and others
Winner: Draw. Can't find much fault in either movie.
Plot
Winner: The Wrath of Kahn. The genesis device was hugely original, the Kahn vs Kirk fight hugely dramatic, the death of Spock was hugely emotional, and Kirk having a son was hugely surprising. No contest here. The whole "I'm ticked off and have a super weapon" thing reminds me too much of Nemesis. TWOK was wonderfully simple. 2 men, each with a comparable ship, playing a big game of chess.
Direction
Star Trek: JJ Abrams The Wrath of Kahn: Nicholas Meyer
Winner: The Wrath of Kahn. Not an easy choice here but a good director can draw the viewer in without relying on a million phaser blasts and explosions. I felt Star Trek was a bit too busy at points, not allowing the viewer a chance to ever focus. In The Wrath of Khan, every torpedo burst, explosion, and phase blast had meaning. There weren't many but what little there were counted for a lot and were precisely detailed.
Overall
Winner: The Wrath of Kahn.
Just no contest. Star Trek is a good if not great film but just falls a bit short. Still, it's a worthy entry into the franchise and one I will watch more than a few times.