Very Disappointing

Rating: 2/10 (21 November 2009)

I must say I was very, very disappointed by this movie. I had read a lot of critical praise for it, and not seen much in the way of negative comment, so I expected it to be a least fairly good. Unfortunately this was not so. Frankly it seemed to me mostly a load of distasteful sensationalism, that did nothing but harm to the Star Trek vision. Of course it has plenty of fancy special effects - although they do seem to lean heavily towards a lot of flashing coloured swirls. And the acting is thoroughly professional - given the script, I don't think the actors can be faulted at all. They do excellent work with what's available to them. But the whole direction seems a complete disaster to me. Really I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised or disappointed. This is entirely consistent with Abrams' previous performance. I have to admit I've found all his previous output pretty much intolerable, with the possible exception of parts of Felicity. But I don't really have any emotional investment in, for example, Mission Impossible, so I didn't much care if he made a mess of that - other than the fact that film was just extremely unpleasant, and generally a negative contribution to the human race. I care more about this, because I really do think that Star Trek was worth saving from being reduced to this kind of nasty trash. Ah well, nothing is safe in this universe. As Spock might say, we must try to avoid emotional involvement, and rationally all we can do is try our best to encourage positive alternatives. As a final note, though, I truly am shocked that this movie didn't get much more negative response, especially from fans of the real Star Trek (fairly multifarious though that may be... but I certainly wouldn't include this unpleasant misbirth).