Soulless. Star Wars fans brace for impact, it will be hard.

Rating: 5/10 (25 May 2013)

For the record, I did like the 2009 movie, was not perfect but fun anyway and a good refresh. But now...why? Why a bunch of guys are destroying Sci-Fi most precious jewels? This guy, Damon Lindelof destroyed Alien with a really bad story and script in Prometheus. Now using all mediocrity and laziness available, he and two other writers do a complete rehash of Wrath of Khan that it feels like a shameless remake, but without brains, without mystique, without pacing. Explosions, chasing, explosions, chasing, no real sense of suspense, just go for the ride and shut your brains...I indeed felt sometimes I was watching a Bond film in space, as another reviewer suggested.
It would have been so much better, if they wanted to rehash some old Trek story, to take the episode "Where No Man has gone before", from the 60s, and make Commander Gary Mitchell a powerful villain, like in that episode, which is so very classic and excellent Sci-Fi. I was almost convinced that this was the case, but no, Lindelof and company did not have the intelligence nor creativity, they had to bring back a story and character from the most successful Star Trek movie, just to be sure. Chickens, that's what they are, Abrams and his creative team !
At first, I had no problem with the Khan character, I even liked it how he was brought back, and the film was performing decently (except for the Klingon subplot, pointless and unnecessary)...but then everything begins to fall in the third act. Khan and Kirk as sidekicks? Even though it was brief, it felt out of place, even embarrassing; then we have exactly the same story from the original Wrath of Khan with reversal of roles and change of setting, and then, a boring James Bond Spock chasing the bad guy, fighting at the top of a vehicle...boring, boring, boring.
Acting is decent. Pike is good; Khan is good but the actor underused; Spock and Kirk are good, more tribute than imitation. My main problem is with the story and script and the overuse of chasing, explosion, chasing, explosion, chasing, explosion...this is not what Star Trek is about.
Is this Star Trek or Star Wars?...It literally is THE END when almost the same people are now in charge of both franchises that were so different in approach and style. Star Wars fans brace for impact, it will be hard. (and again, that guy Lindelof destroyed Alien, I'm pretty sure the man is not very appreciated in the sci-fi fan community).
The End is: The Alien universe, Star Trek and soon Star Wars are now part of the same by-product of the senseless, brutal and mediocre money machine, it's so shameless that it's the same people in charge. All the same movies, with different faces.
How sad.