Uninspired sequel, to a kind-of-entertaining flick

Rating: 6/10 (22 January 2014)

*A few spoilers bellow, nothing too big* The plot was pretty boring, and predictable. From the very moment Khan hands a vial of his blood to the guy that detonates the "data storage" you know it's gonna deus ex machina the hell out of the last 15 minutes of the movie. Combat scenes were uninspired at best and the shaky camera work doesn't make the combat look more dynamic or exciting, it actually really bugged me, like it does in every other action scene recently. Shaking the lens off your camera is no excuse for bad fight choreography.
There were several plot "oversights" I will not mention, but what really got me was the scene where the meeting between all the captains and admirals is held. For someone who has been bred to be a war machine Khan really does neglect his flanks, even when hits are being registered on his right, he completely ignores Kirk. Who does that? Not a battle hardened, strategic master of combat, that's for sure. What were Khan's motives for saving the away team on Kronos anyway? He could have easily let them get wiped out and still negotiated with Sulu for his crew. He would have had no fault for their death. As far as acting and script goes Chris Pine was just painful to watch. There isn't a shred of Kirk in that man. All the Original Series references and homages were really forced. Every time Bones opened his mouth it felt awkward and out of place. As much as I like Zachary Quinto he definitely is a shoddy Vulcan. Benedict Cumberbatch's performance on the other hand was fantastic. It was a bit too reminiscent of his Sherlock perhaps, but he did good nonetheless. Definitely one of the better villains in recent years, he had a really menacing presence in every scene, save for the couple of instances of combat stupidity.
And then there was Alice Eve... I can't even wrap it around my head how pointless her character was. I hate to think that Abrams wrote her in the script, I'd rather think she was a product of producer meddling, because they just wanted some eye candy at one point or another. All in all I was disappointed by the script and a good portion of the acting. Not to mention the extreme scarcity of extra terrestrial characters. We got a few minutes of Klingons getting whooped, and that was about it for the relevance of other races (except for Spock). The very human-centric cast was a huge blunder, as we got to see at least a couple of characters that you just want to know more about, like the android guy and the scaly lady on bridge. Not to mention Keenser, that was just such a disappointing and stupid way to use the character. He was...well...nothing. He just was. Speaking of wasted potential - how about some more scenes of Terran life? The ones that were there were definitely interesting.
My rating is 6/10 because despite all the shortcomings it's still a rather entertaining film and Benedict Cumberbatch's performance lends greatly to that.