This movie is stupid!

Rating: 4/10 (10 May 2009)

**Spoiler alert** Yes, I mean it. I'm glad i saw it at a free advance screening and didn't have to actually pay for it. That would be 8 dollars down the drain.
If you like your movies to assault you into submission through cinematic shock and awe, or you like shallow eye candy, then this is the one for you because that's all it is. Just one gigantic special effect after another tied together by writing gimmicks, contrivances, and clichés. What little plot exists is thoughtless and senseless. Old Spock and the villains time travel from the 24th Century back to the 23rd through a black hole (black holes don't work that way) and create an alternate reality where Star Trek history is changed. Why??? If the writers wanted the freedom to retell Star Trek, why didn't they just re-imagine it like what was done with Battlestar Galactica? It was completely unnecessary, except to give Leonard Nimoy an excuse for being in it. The writing is bad, lazy, or both.
We're supposed to believe that Kirk joins Starfleet at Captain Pike's request because Pike watched him _lose_ a bar fight and decided Kirk would make a great captain one day? And believe that after Spock kicks Kirk off the Enterprise, he just happens to land on the very planet where old Spock and Scotty are?? And they help Kirk transport back to the Enterprise even after it's long gone from the system??? And Kirk gets promoted straight to captain from cadet, skipping three ranks, based on this shoddy story???? What????? There's hardly any character development, just a quick rush to get all the main characters together as quickly as possible. Kirk grows up without a father because he died in battle. The movie shows almost nothing about how that affected his growth, so there's no insight into his motivations for joining Starfleet, and therefore no reason to care about him. With Spock, you get slightly more back story, such as family interaction, but not much. The destruction of Vulcan is an example of shock and awe mentioned above, and serves no other purpose except to look cool. We don't learn enough about Spock or Vulcan to care that it's gone. Kirk and McCoy supposedly become friends at the Academy, but we never see this friendship develop so we have no reason to care about it, either. As for Scott, Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura, they're plot devices, not full characters, who drive forward what little plot there is. Uhura does get to take off her clothes and make out with Spock, so she offers some fan-service.
The action sequences are weak and consist of Kirk hanging off the edge of very high objects by his fingers not once, but three times while villains loom over him! Fight sequences are poorly choreographed and poorly filmed.
Star Trek is supposed to be science fiction, but it's chock full of bad, outdated science and fake science. I hate technobabble and was glad the writers jettisoned it, but they also threw basic science out the window with it.
I haven't over-analyzed the movie. I realized it was stupid as I was watching it, but I'm just as susceptible to shock and awe as every other human being on earth. Once the initial euphoria wore off the day after I saw it, I knew I'd been had.
I rated it generously with 4 stars instead of 1 because the cast is good. Unfortunately, they were given bad material to work with.
If you're going to see it just for Simon Pegg, he's in it for around 20 minutes only. Save your money and wait for the DVD.