my review from my site.
I'm not a Star Trek fan, I'm more of a Star Wars guy. I grew up watching, Next Generation, but that was along time ago. Recently I watched Wraith Of khan and First Contact, which I found to be entertaining films, but that was never enough to drag me into the franchise. As for the franchise itself, Nemesis performed poorly at the Box Office, followed by the latest TV series, Enterprise, which was cancelled. At this point something new needed to be done and this is where J.J Abrams stepped in. When I heard that the film would focus on a younger Kirk and Spock, I thought this wasn't going to work, this is stepping backwards, not forwards. I learnt that sometimes the past can help reshape the future, the trailer proved this to me. Everything after that was positive and I was hooked.
Plot
The film takes a look at a younger crew from the USS Enterprise, but focuses on the contrasts between, James T. Kirk(Chris Pine) and Spock(Zachary Quinto). Kirk grows up as the wild child, while Spock has been disciplined since birth. Both of them must learn to work together as a Romulan ship from the future lead by Nero(Eric Bana) plans to destroy Earth.
The Good
I have no idea where to start because there is so much to this film that I loved. I'll start by giving major props to the cast, that didn't repeat what the original cast did. Instead they bring new elements to the characters. Pine, I felt had the hardest job because let's face it, William Shatner is Kirk, both character and actor have become cemented into pop culture. Pine, nailed the role, this dude ****ing rocked as Kirk. Not once did I think of Shatner while watching his performance, and to me, that was VERY important. Quinto also did a damn good job at taking over the roll of Spock. It was interesting to see that character dealing with his emotions and human half. At no point did I feel like the characters were placed in this film for the sake of it, each character serves a purpose and each actor fills the role perfectly.
The main problem with prequels are, you know what happens to each character, you know their faith, which leaves no room for a sense of danger and lessens the barrier of possibilities. Here, a new timeline is created and I loved how it was executed with just a few simple lines that left me satisfied.
Everything in this film looked beautiful, and I mean everything, from the sets to how space itself looked. The one thing I got to mention is, how the ships moved. In all of the incarnations of Star Trek, everything seemed to move in a straight line perfectly, but in this Star Trek, you really feel these ships movements throughout space.
I really didn't want this film to end. The adventure was so big and something interesting was always going on. Unlike Star Trek before, which felt slow and dragged out a lot, this film just entertains without stopping.
The Bad
I wouldn't say Nero is any sort of great villain that anyone would really remember. He is there to pushed the plot, but I never found him to be interesting. Bana did a great job, but Nero just felt like another run of the mill villain.
I really enjoyed Leonard Nimoy, reprising the role as future Spock, but I felt like the character overstayed his welcome for a bit. I was like ''Ok cool, you served your purpose, now stop hanging around''.
Overall
Forget about the perception you have of Star Trek, this is fresh, new, exciting, fun and I dare say MUCH better then anything Star Wars has done in the past 10 years.
Rating
8/10