stunningly average

Rating: 4/10 (5 May 2009)

i was quite excited to see this remake of star trek so when i got advance screening tickets last Saturday i jumped at the chance to go. The movie starts out with a ridiculously stupid scene of kirks father dying as he rams his ship into the Romulan craft, and of course in the nick of time baby kirk and his mother are saved. we are then introduced to Spock, the only really well cast character in this entire movie and his half breed back story. the film then transitions to Kirk's life before enrolling in the Academy. i wish they would have focused on this section more as it was by far the most interesting part of the movie yet only about 10 minutes was devoted to the set up. Kirk and Spock form a polar opposite of each other and Kirk put on probation for breaking Spocks supposedly unbreakable test, and OH MY GOD right as this happens a distress call is heard from Vulcan... what amazing timing, the fleet is dispatched and Kirk manages to sneak on board. Something that really bothered me was how utterly useless the human spaceships were. the fleet got destroyed in like 2 seconds and it might have well been no resistance whatsoever to the attack. deflector shields just do not exist in this version, although briefly mentioned each shot destroys some part of the ship. Vulcan is destroyed by some Red matter crap which creates a black hole at the center of the planet!! WTF that makes no sense... this is also the scene where we see the "skydiving" in the trailer.... you cant enter an atmosphere in just a spacesuit... you would be incinerated! this leads to the most ridiculous fight on this drill ever in which Harold Lee(wheres Kumar) kills two different Romulans...(must have taken a break from that bong) ... not to critic his performance i actually found him to be the only likable member of the crew besides Spock and it at least seemed like he knew the whole thing was comical. the kid that was killed in Alfa dog plays without a doubt the worst and most irritating version of a Russian that i have ever heard. Note to the actor, slurring your words is not a substitute for an accent. The plot from that point gets even more out of control, with elements of time travel coming into play, the villain, Nero, time travels at least three times in the movie... and Spock somehow appears as two separate entities in the film which is not remarked as strange by anyone besides Kirk.then there is an attack on earth, which i guess has absolutely NO defenses anymore, despite our huge star fleet/ missiles we just let the Romuluans start trying to destroy the planet like its no big deal. the only positives to this was Spock, Scotty(the high point of the film by far) and the awesome dude that is Harold... and it looks visually fantastic cons... terrible set up, unlikable hero, no plot, terrible Villain