Space Seed/Wrath of Khan Dumbed Down

Rating: 6/10 (23 May 2013)

To understand this review you may have to decide whether you are the kind of science fiction fan that enjoys a more cerebral show or a mindless eye candy fest.
The original Star Trek had gaudy outfits,cheap special effects and a low budget; but it was filled with great characters and stories that mattered and addressed issues of our culture (race, greed, etc). Star Trek was more cerebral than most shows on television and that translated well to the movies. While the first Star Trek film was a complete bust, the franchise rebounded with The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home and The Undiscovered Country. Khan dealt with a madman intent on revenge while covering the main characters dealing with issues of growing older, finding out about their past and dealing with loss. Shatner showed the acting ability that garnished him stage roles prior to Star Trek. Some folks did not like Star Trek because it had a more cerebral approach and it was directed more at characterization and story over eye candy.
Star Wars, on the other hand, was a complete mind-numbing juvenile series of movies that relied on eye candy because there was no acting and no storyline worth mentioning. This is what seems to appeal to the masses though.
Now comes Abrams who turns Star Trek into a mindless fusion of Star Wars meets Transformers. The story lines are bad, very bad, and lack cohesiveness on every level. The movies have little to no character development and actually steal lines from the original to "try" and bring some sense of character to the film. Like The Transformers the movie is all about death, destruction on a mass scale and eye candy special effects.
So what is good about this version of Star Trek? Karl Urban does a great job as McCoy and would do Deforest Kelley proud in his translation of the McCoy character; Zach Quinto does a nice job as Spock with the limited screenplay he has to work with; and Zoe Saldana fleshes out Uhura with more substance than the character has had before.
Chris Pine is dreadful as Kirk and his portrayal (and the writings) kind of exhibit a dislike towards the Kirk character. Or it is an attack on Shatner. Kirk was not this wild, irresponsible, clueless, lack of leadership captain. In fact, Kirk was the kind of officer that service men would have wanted to serve under because he was fair, made good choices, cared for his crew and was a model leader.
Your view of the movie will be dictated by how you view science fiction: if you are more cerebral and like the original Star Trek, Firefly, Farscape and shows on that level of existence you may find this movie to be cluttered junk. If you are a Star Wars, TV Stargate type of cardboard character, eye candy junkie than this is the movie for you.