Heartless and humorless, Abrams devolves his frenetic pap into a shinier ripoff of Star Wars.

Rating: 5/10 (9 May 2009)

To paraphrase Janet Maslin, a 1982 NY Times critic--Well, that's a lot LESS like it!
At least JJ.Abrams hasn't killed, just insulted and brought low this great franchise, and outraged lifelong fans like me. His reboot is mere eye-bubblegum at best. Forgettable the minute it's over, nobody could discuss the plot at length just 1/2hr later.
At worst, it devolves Star Trek into a shinier ripoff of Star Wars, in a transparent attempt to appeal to the masses.
Once its predecessor ST-X:Nemesis(2002) broke the even-numbered-charm by losing money, Star Trek(2009)'s seven producers should've known better than to again invoke Romulan terrorism for a plot. Missing stronger plot ideas for Harve Bennett's prequel, they succumbed to repetition. Time-travel would conveniently acculturate the younger actors, so....we got what we got.
We quickly lose the plot because action dominates (the film is unbalanced); time-travel and "red matter" pragmatics are glossed-over for the novelty-seekers with no patience for science; the set-ups for location and discovery exposition are poor, eg when young Spock commandeers old Spock's ship or why old Spock unaccountably deals with "red matter" himself; we're unprepared for Spock's venal marooning of Kirk ACCIDENTALLY on the planet where old Spock is also marooned, or for old Spock's ridiculous sighting of Vulcan imploding; plus cadet Kirk gets promoted embarrassingly quickly to Captain.
Some discomforts are due to losses in editing, but not all. Beats like the marooning and the "Centaurian slugs"(Ceti-Alpha eels) are carelessly borrowed from ST-II:The_Wrath_of_Khan(1982); "shiny" elements are slathered on, as are all the imperceptibly-quick action scenes, matched by a deluge of unlikely success. Such pandering choices result in cinematic bubblegum, begun in the screenplay: according to ST-II:The_Wrath_of_Khan(1982) young Kirk wasn't a loser bad-boy, just a Lothario "crazy for space". In ST(2009) he's been rewritten as having abilities we don't see, and hunky enough to induce Capt.Pike (Greenwood) to become his overawed benefactor.
Even worse, the severe dress uniforms, combined with the Iowa cop's Judge Dredd(1995)-look and ST-inappropriate attitude give Starfleet the feel of a fascist Death Star assembly.
Did Star Trek deserve this claptrap?
Abrams appears out of faith for the franchise, surreptitiously remaking it into Star Wars; but we can be equally angry at professional critics, whose job it was to pick such things up, and to consider that when fans "smell horse-puckey, perhaps there's a pony in the barn".
This screenplay was of course written with George.W in office, when the revenge-seeking terrorist must've seemed irresistible for geeing-up audiences. Although that plot device can be--and in ST-II:The_Wrath_of_Khan(1982) ALREADY HAS BEEN--done well, its belaboring has also typically been at the root of several unpopular Star Trek movies. Abrams et al nevertheless felt the.....need to ramp-up audience dread with it, having the spouse-destructively stupid Nero (Bana, utterly wasted) riding a needle-fronted spaceship--a motif thoughtlessly stolen from "Babylon-5"(TV), where it made sense.
Thievery ISN'T homage.
The dull score is forgettable, but irritating when its misplaced Chinese violin is found to be stolen from "Firefly"(TV), to pull "Browncoats". Only the reworked ST:TOS end theme enhances/is enhanced by the nebulae and planetary visuals. The OPENING could've used that.
I've sat with 3 audiences seeing it for the first time now. Two failed to laugh at the paltry jokes; the only titter was raised by Uhura's ridiculous and unexpected smooching of the Vulcan. Clearly these were fans who didn't know what hit them. Uhura(Zoe Saldana)'s unexplained relationship with Spock--now rewritten as the sexier one--becomes unintentionally funny; had this been an organic wink at Nichelle Nichols' historic interracial kiss with Bill Shatner, we'd have been pleased.
Simon Pegg, too, creates a silly buffoon for Scotty that's nothing short of a "crack in the Star Trek canon"(Scott Weinberg). It undercuts the kindly engineering geek that Jimmy Doohan spent decades crafting, revealing an uncaring disrespect for Roddenberry's vision itself.
Pegg's unwelcome postmodernist characterization adds another unwelcome flourish with a JarJar Binks-ripoff sidekick, who has no lines, but annoys both "Scotty", and us. This must be the filmmakers' failed rework of Gerrold's tribbles.
Winona Ryder is missing gravitas--and screen time--as Spock's mother Amanda. Her death is unmissed, except by John Cho's Hikaru Sulu, whose powerful reaction shot isn't enough.
Only Zachary Quinto (Sylar from "Heroes"(TV)) has imbued his performance with many of Nimoy's reticent nuances. Not surprisingly, Nimoy actually worked with him for weeks to achieve this, but it was the first honest work I could see in the film.
At least the writers knew the lore. I enjoyed their incorporation of Kirk's middle-name into his birth and that it was originally his Starfleet biological father who didn't "believe in the no-win scenario"; as well as McCoy's acquisitions of his nickname and fear of transporters, etc. Lore maintenance is good, but its revamping goes wrong by imposing stolen elements purely for generic loser-appeal.
Scott Chambliss' wonderful production design for the Enterprise interiors deserves special mention. His plexiglass and flexible spot-lamps are brilliantly new while reminiscent of ST:TOS. However we could've lived without the heavy girders, plumbing, and the ridiculous smelt-works locations, which borrow too much from ST:Enterprise.
The third audience I sat with was the most animated, being an evening audience well-lubricated with champagne, but none of them had any exit opinions to offer either. Nobody clapped, like they had in 1982.
We have an obligation to compare ST(2009) with the Trek features high-water mark, especially because Nick Meyer's ST-II:The_Wrath_of_Khan(1982) was itself a (second filmic) reboot that snatched franchise victory from the jaws of defeat. Unfortunately Bad Robot's frenetic bad-faith pap serves up only a calculated and insulting, empty version of Star Trek to its hopeful/thoughtful fans. We wonder, will Abrams "learn by doing"?
If this reboot garners newer generations AND future directors restore things to a less Fascist, truer Star Trek feel, then fine; otherwise all this action-ridden pap and ill-advised "borrowing".....won't have been worth it.(5/10)