Review of Star Trek (2009) by Pauljohnson — 07 Dec 2011

Overall, this could have been any C grade science fiction movie. Let's break this down. Here's what was bad about this movie:

The script - it was so horribly cliched, and full of massive plot holes that render some major scenes inert. The pacing was too well done, no time out is taken to get to know these characters particularly well, and we get the bare minimum of development. On the whole, this film is just a Transformers style action film punctuated with bursts of emotion in ways that are so obviously contrived I don't know how anyone fell for this.

The villain - has the worst motivations for doing what he is doing in any film. Future Spock did his best to help him, and failed in his attempt. So its logical to assume that because of that, cliche villain will now destroy all the Federation planets, so in the future, nobody can help him. And before anyone tries to tell me he's crazy, Bana's performance and the dialogue given to him does not suggest someone who is crazy. Heath Ledger's Joker is crazy. This guy isn't. Kirk - What an **** At the end of the movie we get no sense that he is any different from the pompous prick who crashed his step dad's car for fun at the beginning of the movie. What awful character development. The cinematography - EVERYTHING has to be shot from within 10 feet of the **** subject. Whoever the DoP for this film was, don't hire them again. They don't know how to set up a goddamn shot, everything was shot so close and with the camera shaking so much like it was sat on a giant vibrator, it got difficult to tell what was supposed to be happening. Also, take out all the lens flares. Yeah, they look nice for some shots, but not every shot in the film. Unexplained things - So, this red matter can destroy a planet. Or it can be completely harmless to ships so they can be sent back in time so we can have this film. And then later on, it destroys the ships. Thanks for the explanation guys. Oh yeah, that's right, the plot says it has to happen, so it does.

Having said that, there are a few things that were good in this film. Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban both did a good job with what they had to work with, Quinto especially. I didn't like Zoe Saldana in this film, she just seemed to come off as arrogant as Uhura, and Chris Pine as Kirk didn't go very well, though at times he really showed off his acting ability with what awful material he had to work from. The design overall was nice, I loved the new look for engineering, its how I'd imagine the engine room of a vast starship to look like. Just little subtle things like these made this film pop up a bit more. It's definitely not an intelligent movie, but it sort of serves as a bridge between the best of Trek films and the worst of Trek films. It's a movie that you can enjoy with your buddies while eating a pizza and having some beer, but its not a film to watch if you want something intelligent. And that is the problem - Star Trek is capable, and has to be about big ideas. This isn't Star Trek at all.