Mindless summer blockbuster disguised as Star Trek

Rating: 6/10 (27 September 2009)

I'm not a "Trekkie". I never watched the original Star Trek series, New Generation, Voyager and that last series, whatsitsname. I saw several episodes of that space station thing and wasn't very impressed. I also saw all the Star Trek movies, and found them ranging mostly between above and below average.
So while I'm obviously not a Star Trek fan material, I always had sort of weak spot towards the whole concept behind the franchise. Rosy, idealistic future, science-worship induced optimism and cerebral atmosphere were so much different than anything else on TV or big screen, like a little part of the 60-ies that somehow just wouldn't die.
Well, it's sure dead now.
A franchise reboot is only as good as the part of the franchise it manages to revive. Which makes this movie a very, VERY bad reboot. And not much better film either.
I won't dwell much on scientific inaccuracies, plot holes, unmotivated characters and forced action scenes that perforate the script into a giant incoherent mess; you can read about them in all the other 2- star reviews on this site. For me, the biggest letdown of this movie lies in the very idea behind it - trying to make an intense, hip, COOL action film out of a material that was never meant to be intense, hip or cool, let alone action.
Apparently, the producers' idea to revive Star Trek was to keep only the outermost shell of what constitutes this franchise (basically, uniforms, character names and starship models) and replace everything else with a grotesque combination of a Jason Bourne-esquire shaky-camera action and Han Solo mentality. In the process, Star Trek ceased to resemble itself. Clean-shaven well-mannered space cadets from the 22nd century communistic utopia suddenly started backstabbing each-other over rank (including stranding a rival crew-member on an icy planet), performing parachuting stunts through hundreds of kilometers of outer space and going alone into shootouts against an entire crew of a death-star-esquire spaceship. If the CGI department changed the ship models and pasted on different uniforms over the characters, the producers could have easily sold this as "Star Wars 7" and no one would have noticed the difference.
Of course, some would say, what's wrong with that? Who doesn't like Star Wars? Well, I like Star Wars plenty enough, but I like Star Trek too. Just because one seems to be more popular at the moment, doesn't mean we should just throw away the other one. Even if the pendulum of general public interest never swung back towards the more cerebral overtones of the classical Star Trek, there would have always been fans willing to keep the fire going; maybe with switching to lower-budget series and films, or even just comics and novels, but Star Trek franchise would have kept its place in history.
By turning it into a pale imitation of Star Wars, the producers had sold that place for a one-time profit of a summer blockbuster. It's their right, sure, but it sucks for the rest of us.
OK, so why did I give this 6, instead of 1 or 2 stars, like other critics? Well, even through all its rampart stupidity and missed potential, the movie was sort of fun in an empty-headed blockbuster sort of way. The actors did a splendid job of recreating old characters in their own way and CGI scenes were at times truly beautiful (especially during the no-sound scenes of outer space).
If you've never seen a 'real' Star Trek, are a Star Wars fan or just want some light-headed action-sf goodness, you'll probably enjoy this movie very much and subsequently contribute to its overinflated rating. Cheers.