Beyond Darkness Lies...Nothing

Rating: 3/10 (20 May 2013)

Those who know me have heard umpteen times my saying about original ideas in the movies. This is particularly true when doing a reboot/remake/sequel; you have a universe that has already been set up, now how do you give the audience something different while still playing within the limits of that universe? The Star Trek reboot I thought was one that got it right, and if that wasn't enough, they reset the universe in such a way that they could pretty much do whatever they wanted.
And what did they do with this opportunity? They lamely ripped off a previous entry in the franchise, threw in some glaring logic holes and a preachy message, while producer/director J.J. Abrams forced some hammy overacting out of the villain.
LAME RIP-OFFS
The previous entry they ripped off was "Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan", and they ripped off the ending, but only swapped the roles between Kirk and Spock, and if that wasn't enough, Spock screams Khan's name after Kirk dies, just Kirk did when Khan taunted him in the original.
LOGIC ERRORS
How does an armed ship fly up to Starfleet Headquarters and proceed to blow away a meeting of admirals? Where's security (especially since it occurred right after a "terrorist" attack)?
How does Scotty manage to fly into an enemy base by pulling the old "Let's Blend in with the Drones" trick? Where's their security?
THEME PROBLEMS
The "terrorist attack" clearly parallels the terrorist situation of today and so we're clubbed over the head with a debate on how to respond to them. I know this debate will never end, and I can see both sides of this issue, but did the writers have to be so blatant about it? This was the reason I hated "Avatar" so much, but at least this movie only hit us over the head twice.
HAMMY OVERACTING
Before this movie, I had never heard of Benedict Cumberbatch, the actor playing the villain. I then saw him in a BBC TV series "Sherlock" (an example of a reboot done right), and could see he was the right man for the job. In the trailers, he oozed menace out of the simplest lines like "Now, shall we begin?". That was clearly his best line, because the rest of his deliveries were so hammy I was waiting for some eggs to show up.
RECOMMENDATIONS
As I previously mentioned, BBC's "Sherlock", a modern-day update of the one-man CSI lab, is an example of a remake done right. Benedict owns the role, and the writers really challenged the character while still staying faithful to the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Another good remake was "Assassination of a High School President", which took a well-known noir film and remade it into a teen film (it's good, trust me).