Not only a bad film but "Star Trek" in name only

Rating: Null/10 (5 December 2014)

When I saw this in the cinema, I loved it. Looking back, I think that that was because I had been completely starved of new "Star Trek" for four years and was willing to accept it on that basis alone. Unfortunately, it does not hold up on a second viewing with a more critical eye. Continuing with the Bond comparison that I made in my review of "Nemesis", it is trying to be "Star Trek"'s answer to "Casino Royale" but it falls far short of that. The reason is that that film was made by people who understood Bond while this film was not made by people who understood "Star Trek".
On the bright side, Chris Pine is very good as Kirk, perfectly capturing the character's cockiness, intelligence and resourcefulness without doing an imitation of William Shatner. However, I thought that Kirk and McCoy - played very well by Karl Urban - were the only characters who were really treated well in the film. Given that the alternate reality Kirk grew up without the benefit of a father or even a decent father figure, it's unsurprising that he turned out differently than the TOS Kirk, who was far less rebellious in his youth, and this is handled well. That said, an issue that I had this Kirk's backstory was that his mother's influence on him is never mentioned. After she gives birth to him, she is mentioned exactly twice in the film and never by Kirk himself. Why is it that the influence of mothers is often ignored in films like this? I had a similar problem with the original "Star Wars" in which the orphan Luke Skywalker asks Obi-Wan about his father and it seemingly never occurred to him to ask him if he knew his mother. It'd be the first question that I'd ask after meeting someone who knew my father.
Other than McCoy who is characterised perfectly, the rest of the TOS regular characters come across as caricatures rather than characters in their own right. The alternate reality Spock never really seems like Spock and this is not helped by the fact that Zachary Quinto is no Leonard Nimoy, whose participation in the film is by far the best part of it incidentally. I literally cheered when he appeared on screen. I really, really hope that Spock jettisoning Kirk for mutiny was supposed to be a sign of his emotional instability after the death of his mother and the destruction of Vulcan since, otherwise, there is no reason for it to happen other than the script said it had to for Kirk to meet the original Spock. My hopes are not high in that regard though.
Simon Pegg's Scotty is sort of funny but bears little resemblance to Scotty. Zoe Saldana and Anton Yelchin are likable as Uhura and Chekov and at least seem more like their TOS counterparts than Scotty does but they don't make much impression. Can't say that I'm terribly excited about the Spock / Uhura romance. John Cho makes no impression as Sulu, delivering every line in a monotone. Like Nimoy, Ben Cross and Bruce Greenwood add some much needed dignity to the film as Sarek and Captain Pike respectively. Eric Bana is boring as Nero who, much like Shinzon in "Nemesis", is another poor man's Khan. He too is obsessed with having his revenge against one of the main characters whom he blames for the death of his wife.
Lots and lots of lens flare but every joke about them has been done to death so I'll leave that there. I can't criticise the special effects which are state of the art and many of the action scenes are well done but because the script is nowhere near as intelligent as those of earlier "Star Trek" films, it's hard to really care about them. The film looks good but so what? Most big budget films do. That doesn't make them good in and of themselves. Anyway, for me, the special effects in a film are like the side dish while the acting and the script, both of which aren't great overall in this case, are the main course. "Star Trek" has always been about big ideas and social commentary rather than flashy effects and stuff getting blowed up real good and this film just doesn't get that. Now, let's be honest, scientific accuracy was never "Star Trek"'s strongest suit but the idea of a star going supernova threatening the galaxy is complete hokum.
Overall, it's not a terrible film but it is both a bad film and a bad "Star Trek" film. I actually preferred "The Final Frontier" and "Nemesis" to this one. At the end of the day, I'd rather have bad "Star Trek" films with characters whom I love than bad films that are "Star Trek" in name only with generally poor versions of said characters.