Here is the review that I wrote in the Don Murphy board:
I went in with low expectations given Hollywood's recent track record with remakes but open for the film to show me its worth on its own merits and negatives.
I am pleased to say that overall I really enjoyed it, it is certainly the best Trek film since at least the end of the TOS movies as it had thrilling action, mostly likable characters and very little cringy moments. Overall it was a fine piece of cinema.
Although I knew bits and pieces of the plot beforehand mostly from what I could piece together from the previews, I did expect a lot of continuity clunkyness since the movie had announced itself as a reinvention of Star Trek TOS but at the same time they insisted that it was within the 30+ year old continuity which both seemed contradictive. The truth is that they are both right and (as far as I know) in an unheard before form, they indeed managed to do both a complete continuity reboot triggered by a canonical event which is the new 'alternate' timeline which this movie takes place in.
Although Time travel is frankly a very tired 'plot fixer' in Star Trek (Voyager and Enterprise), it was elegantly done here as there was clearly a conscious effort to make the time travel event a considerable part of the plot rather than just a gimmick. Yeah I know that the time travel is just a device to reboot the franchise while at the same time maintaining canon but unlike recent uses of it in the franchise, it meld in pretty well with the overall plot and in that context, it didn't seem forced nor gimmicky. The big highlight and connecting point of all this 'continuity flux' was Leanard Nimoy reprising his role of Spock which was last seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation where he remained on Romulus leading an underground 'reunification' movement between Romulans and Vulcans. Before watching the movie, I suspected that Nimoy's role would be little more than 'Hi and Bye' cameo but he did indeed have a critical and considerable role in the overall plot which was a very pleasing and welcomed surprise.
Now of the 'new' characters:
Due to the time travel effect ('Butterfly effect' as Lord_Zed called it based on that movie) we do have some considerable differences in the reimaginings of these new STO characters. As mentioned, the time travel bit was clever and it does serve to rationalize what would otherwise be continuity inconsistencies as well as 'tweaking' the character personalities to something which is considered more mainstream.
Kirk - This character is a hard one to re imagine with a new actor as originally, the performance was fueled by Shatner's own personality. However in this version, he is made to be much more of a 'rebel teen' but the reason for this is rationalized as due to the changes made by the creation of this alternate timeline from Nero's intrusion, this Kirk grew up without a father and since the original Kirk already had a 'controlled rebellious' streak, this Kirk lacked this control arguably due to lack of a good paternal influence. Overall he was a well done and decent Kirk even though he is considerably different in many ways to the original but there is a good reason for it.
Spock - This Spock is pretty spot on to the original and is the more 'character consistent' of the re imaginings when compared to the originals. Spock is indeed logical in his arrogant form but clearly with less emotional control. However this 'more emotional' spock is canon as he did show emotion in the original pilot 'The Cage' so Spock of this time period is expected to be less controlled in that manner. He displayed a lot more emotion with Uhura but this seems a direct result of the destruction of Vulcan so its part of the 'new continuity' as it was triggered by the 'butterfly effect'. Overall a spot on character with some strange changes but like Kirk's character, the changes do make sense given Nero's intrusion.
Dr McCoy - He, like Kirk is another hard one to replicate because much of who the original McCoy character was due to Deforest Kelly's performance and own personal characteristics. However Karl Urban's performance lacked Kelly's unique 'spice' but despite that; it was pretty good even if a little too docile for my tastes. He needed a bit more 'old man anger' but to be fair, the script of this movie gave only one real opportunity for it when he took over as chief medical officer and it was done alright.
Uhura - Unfortunately as most of us expected she had a very token role of 'love interest' to Spock than anything real practical which is a shame. To be fair, in the original series she did have a small role but it was an important one and she was never delegated to 'love interest' during the ST:O but there was a bit of flirting with Scotty in ST:V but that movie was way weird. She did serve the purpose of translating that klingon code thing but it was pretty bland .
Scotty - I can't say that I liked this new over the top take on Scotty, he is clearly a character mostly there for the sake of humor and it wasn't all that well done in my opinion. Yeah, the original Scotty by James Doohan was also a comedic character but he was never hyperactive nor over the top like this but this could also be due to what I perceive to be a shortcoming of the writer's style which is comedy (more on that later). Pegg's performance lacked much of what made the original Scotty memorable and it just felt like a completely different character and not a very likable one at that but not bad enough to distract you too much from the movie unlike Chekov...
Chekov - This was probably the least successful representation of the ST:O characters as the actor failed in every way to properly represent Chekov. His accent was all wrong and he looked NOTHING like the part in both looks and mannerism. He was really the only character which was cringy but this was due to his frustrating Russian accent rather than the arrogant comedic one of Walter Koeing's but at least he had a purpose in the plot.
Sulu - Although the actor looked nothing like Sulu he did perform pretty well although his performance was more action based. However although he was pretty unused aside from the action, he was decent enough with nothing really wrong with him aside that he lacked that edge which George Takei provided making him feel as someone different altogether. He feels like another character but this is mostly due to his looks and mannerism not reflecting Takei's but he was never really given a chance to properly perform so that remains up in the air.
Christopher Pike - This character was well done in a 'mentor' role and although we never really got to extensively see Captain Pike in action during the original series, this new representation does represent some of the qualities seen in the original pilot by making him heroic and self less.
The plot:
As mentioned before, overall the plot was excellent and well thought out. The plot does an excellent job of both rebooting the franchise while maintaining respect towards the 30+ year old continuity. The story was also very good and very much in line with the better Star Trek movies of the past such the wrath of Khan and Star trek VI both which revolved around a 'super' villain that needs to be defeated with a grand space battle at the end.
This movie certainly delivered that feel which is really all that we have been asking from Trek film makers in the past but kept failing to do so with most of the Next Generation films.
However although I understand that Eric Bana's performance as Nero was very effective and certainly did fit the role of a Romulan seeking vengeance, I thought they could of used him better. Yeah the threat he posed was very effective by the destruction he imposed but it was more the threat of his ship than Nero himself. In the wrath of Khan the ship wasn't what was threatening, it was Khan himself. You didn't go 'WATCH OUT! THERE IS THE SHIP!' you went 'WATCH OUT! THERE IS KHAN!' Eric Bana is a great actor and I thought they could have used him better in a villain personality role but instead he was part of the threatening force that was the Romulan ship more than anything that would make him stand out. Anyway it was still effective so that is just a minor observation.
The only real bad points that I saw in the script were things which I consider to be Orci's shortcoming as a writer, the humor. The humor was more gimmicky and imposed into the plot rather than being clever and part of the flow. Kirk's big hands was pretty ridiculous more than funny as well as something that didn't feel part of the world being presented to us. The same goes with Scotty's water pipe sequence. However thankfully unlike Transformers, this humor bits were more subtle and less intrusive than Call center guy, masturbation and robot pissing which we saw in Transformers.
Overall an excellent movie, certainly the best Trek movie this decade and among the best ones overall. It is no Wrath of Kahn and its got some flaws, particularly in the humor department and some characters but the spirit of the original series is certainly there.
This movie has shown me that Roberto Orci indeed knows how to write a good clever script which doesn't have the need to rely on old cliches and plot rehashes so it has helped me to gain respect for the artistic capabilities of this writer even though I think he should not do humor or get someone else aside from Kurtzman to do it.
When it comes to the Cinematography, I thought the action sequences were great although they lacked the suspense we saw in other Star Trek ship to ship battles as it was pretty straight forward 'Bang' than something which gradually gained momentum. The camera work was decent and although there was a bit of shakey cam and bad angles, it was no where near as bad and distracting as Bay, it never 'pulled me out' of the movie as Bay does.
The other reviewer here which I mostly agree with is Bliss81 in the original post.
Overall an 8/10 an excellent movie.
Now I will wait for the Star Trek/X-Men crossover
(Yeah, its an official comic)
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