Great popcorn movie but as bad as any B movie

Rating: 8/10 (17 May 2009)

As a Treker I loved the movie. I'll see it again. The casting was good. The sets are well made and bright. Great effects. Just nice to see Trek on the movie screen again. But it really isn't Trek. It's fun but it's a B-science movie all the way.
But what is so odd is that fans will nitpick a movie to death - and this movie definitely has the nitpickers - yet we'll still say it is a great movie. Yet if this were some B movie with unknown actors or poorer special effects - we'd be jumping all over the movie as poor. Just picture some of the plot lines and try to picture them outside of Star Trek:
*An undisciplined kid joins space school and graduates a year earlier than most which is why he can graduate with some cadets who were already enrolled. *An enemy ship that is defined as a mining ship has the weaponry to defeat dozens of military vessels (Back story apparently explained in some comic which 99% of the movie goers did not read) *Kid is sneaked aboard the flagship, has a piece of information that coincidentally saves the ship, and is thus elevated to 2nd in command *Kid goes ballistic on the bridge, yelling at his captain, assaulting two security guards, is arrested and marooned only to take command when the other captain is considered "emotionally compromised" *The other captain whose planet and mother was just destroyed was taking the reasonable action of rejoining the fleet while the new kid having seen the destruction the enemy can do - decides to engage him one on one "it's him or us". Who is the emotionally compromised person here? *He's marooned on an ice planet with an outpost but lands 14 km away meaning he has to walk through deadly weather on a planet with carnivorous species. Even in 2009 we can land aircraft at their destination - or at least on a nearby river. Not 14 km away on an hostile planet. *This planet or moon just happens to be close enough that they can see an adjacent planet be destroyed. Yet there appears to be no affect on this planet from the sudden gravitation changes. If our moon was destroyed or even had a major orbit shift we'd have major ground changes. *He and another person transport from this planet to a ship that was traveling away at warp three for at least 10 hours. Warp 3 is 29x the speed of light so if you do the math then this ship is over a trillion miles away. And they can put themselves safely in belly of the ship. *The enemy ship is drilling into earth's core and is easily defeated by a lone ship shooting the attached tether. Even if all the starships were elsewhere, you'd think there would be some type of ship around that could attack the cable. Dig an old F14 from a museum and put missiles on it? Ram it with an explosive filled shuttlecraft? *The rest of the crew come up with the elements of the attack and rescue, the kid actually doesn't do too much planning, but when it's over and the kid rescues the old captain, the kid gets promoted again *kid goes from cadet on academic suspension to captain in a few days *and wait for it, not just captain of some small ship where he can get more experience but the captain of the Flagship.
I loved it. I'll see it again. But we have to remember that it is no better than most B sci-fi movies out there. And for this reason, while I loved the movie, it was less like Star Trek. Oddly the movies that have done well like II (Kahn) and IV (Voyage Home) are not unlike this. Fast paced movies with glaring loopholes and elements that make no sense. The movies that try to develop characterization or set a mood are the boring ones or too cerebral. Star Trek has been described as the latter very often and it's true. But Cadet Kirk becoming Captain Kirk in these circumstances is like Desert Water Miner Luke becoming a squadron leader and then Admiral Skywalker. Fun but nothing to think about afterward.