Cutesy, banal, script lifted from Wrath of Kahn, rescued by Benedict.

Rating: 6/10 (18 May 2014)

The movie began stumbling early, with a whiny Prime Directive catfight between Spockum (Quinto is miscast, see his adolescent "Kahn" yell) and TeenKirk, on the pretty red alien planet. Starting a Star Trek movie off with an absurd scenario full of unmotivated plot-necessary drama, instead of the traditional bad guys doing evil while Earth sleeps, is a risky diversion. Bombarding the audience with so much dialogue and over-explaining every thought is simply torture. The script, with absurdities like Dr. Marcus stripping down to undies to get that PG-13, or McCoy randomly, out of the blue, for no reason at all, while the ship is crashing, magically finding a "tribble" to inject Kahn's blood into, otherwise lifts its plot from an old classic on a dusty shelf. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn is arguably the best Star Trek, so why not raid the coffers? Need a theme? No problem, we own all of Star Trek! "Needs of the Many..." Done. Need a redemptive self-sacrifice scene? "Kirk kicks the warp core (downward, and somehow that moves it forward) back online and saves the ship, but kills him. Boo! Oh well. Kaaahhhhnnn!!!!" Done and done! Need some subplots/drama? Backstories? Hand me that script up there, the dusty one.
Good thing Benedict Cumberbatch can act better than a Melrose Place walk-on. He interprets at least Kahn's worldview so we have something to cling on to (see what I did there?). Maybe they brought in a special writer to doctor his role so he doesn't seem lost on the screen. Robocop also held his own as the Strike First Ask Questions Later General (read: conservative foreign policy are bad!) though his delivery was a little overwrought. Which brings us to Zachary-God-please-help-me-keep-this-role-Quinto. This guy is nothing like the real Spock. He seems like a scorned little nerd, not a logicalsuperbeing. Original Spock owned the universe and illogical beings were infesting it. (Next episode they should find a guy who can at least raise one eyebrow.) Pairing him with Ohura provides TONS of love fodder for the teenies, I get it, but dayum! Tone it down. It hogs TeenKirk away from his true personal conflicts, taken from the last movie.
What is TeenKirk's problem? Why is he here? He's a rogue, renegade, loner, dangerous, can't follow orders, cliché, cliché, cliché. And as such, he must be lavished with "You are Too Awesome" criticisms from superadmiralfatherfigure, as if the audience doesn't know about TeenKirk. "You're a good cop, Foley..." and they take his ship away. Oh no!!! Will he ever get it back??? (I believe Adam Sandler wrote the script, though he's not credited.)
In the end, Kahn is defeated, somehow, after a teeth-grinding tete-a-tete with Spockum that could have been so much more. Two worldviews, pure logic verses purely feral; Prime Directive verses a character that represents the worst of men. The two come together at the climax but their conversation is an opportunity lost. How about some cynicism from Kahn, a 300 year old warrior who has seen it all, and a rapier wit from Spock, who knows the dark corners of the mind and the simple, root causes of every evil, to form a word-battle of powerful brevity, each dressing down the other? It could have been Ripley in the robot loader vs the Alien. But instead, *poof* - "I'm better than you!" "No you're not, cuz I am!" 6 out of 10 for Benedict Cumberbatch and the writer who came in to doctor his role so he didn't seem like a Melrose Place walk-on.
Caveat: I am a big fan of Star Trek (2009) and wrote a stellar review of it somewhere.