Star Trek? Try Star Blech.

Rating: 2/10 (9 May 2009)

I was excited about this movie coming out. I wanted to like it. I was extremely disappointed.
While some of the casting was spot on (I truly loved Karl Urban's portrayal of McCoy) others were horrible. This movie turned Uhura from the elegant professional she was into an oversexed adolescent. Scotty went from a dedicated professional to a buffoon. The worst, however, is Chris Pine's take on Kirk. Pine's Kirk is just another rubber stamp "action hero" – the same character we've seen in dozens of big budget action movies before. At no time did I believe him as James T Kirk.
The set designer for this movie should be blacklisted from Hollywood for the cheesy crap he/she threw at us. The engineering "set" looked like something from a bad Sci Fi Channel movie! I understand it was filmed in a power plant. They had $150 million to make this movie, and they couldn't build some actual sets? Ditto for Scotty's "outpost". The auditorium at Starfleet Academy looked like (and probably was) a tired and worn college lecture hall; complete with dingy 70's curtains. I could almost smell the mildew. Every time they showed that garbage, I was rudely jerked out of the tiny amount of suspension of disbelief that I was able to muster.
There were so many plot holes you could use this movie as a doily.
It felt as if the producers really hated Star Trek and were going out of the way to wipe out 40 years of canon. When they destroyed Vulcan and killed Spock's Mother, I nearly walked out.
This movie is not Star Trek. There is no heart, no soul. Nothing but over the top effects and violence. I know that this is what adolescent audiences want nowadays, but why pander to the lowest expectations? Why not give us something that wows us, and not just because it has awesome explosions, but because it engages our minds and imaginations. Even if you ignore it being Star Trek and examine it as just another effects laden Sci Fi movie, it comes up short.
This movie had so much potential. It was all wasted.