I have previously laid out my deep disappointment with this movie here, and have now rewatched it. Expected or not, my previous experience has strengthened rather than tempered my negative views on this second viewing. I just don't think this is a particularly good movie, and it most certainly is not a good Star Trek movie.
Diving into the first point, the plot as laid out makes very little sense. Clearly the writers have no idea what either a supernova or a black hole is – or, more to the point, what they are not – but even accepting the more-ridiculous-than-usual plot devices (c'mon, "Red Matter"?), Nero's hatred for Spock and his subsequent actions stemming from it are really stretching things. Romulus is threatened – and only Romulus, from the looks of things – Spock has an idea how to save it, does his very best to do so, but simply runs out of time. Therefore, Nero puts the full blame of what basically amounts to a natural disaster on – why, Spock of course! And, having serendipitously ended up in the past, he and his entire crew can think of nothing (and I do mean nothing) better to do than sulk about for twenty-five years waiting for Spock to arrive – which, by the way, they knew how? – to exact "revenge" on him and his people. How about, oh, I don't know, going to Romulus to warn them/boost their power with future tech? No? Oh, never mind.
As for the Narada itself, its size, power and overall design are quite incredible, in the original sense of the word. "A simple mining ship", indeed! I suppose there is a perfectly good reason for Romulan miners to jump between platforms spanning seemingly endless abysses all the time, and for their working vessels to have offensive capabilities rivalling Shinzon's Scimitar, complete with transporter-jamming technology. Why, if the Romulans could call these babies "simple", it's a wonder there was even a Federation left at the time of their heyday.
Next up, the "thunderstorm in space". As we see in the opening of the film, this is a description of the spatio-temporal disturbance whence the Narada emerged to immediately go crazy on the ill-fated Kelvin. But it also plays a major role later on, when Kirk realizes that what's happening at Vulcan is related to the events at his own birth – but since the "thunderstorm" was actually caused by the opening wormhole, how can there be one now (and also earlier, when the 47 – whee, 47! – Klingon ships were destroyed)? Has Nero somehow mastered wormhole technology in the intervening 25 years, and is now using it to zip about the 'verse? And, speaking of which, where has he and his unobtrusive little ship been hiding all that time anyway?
The destruction of Vulcan is also strangely underwhelming. Six billion voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced, but the feeling that something terrible has happened does not really transfer through the screen. Spock is "emotionally compromised" over the loss of his dear mother, but that's about it. Not that great a disturbance in the Force, is it?
We also get yet another instance of "OMG we're the only ones in range!" – while nowhere near the first, within or without Trek, it's not much of an excuse to execute it again. Pretty much the only one that's made individual sense so far was found in the oft-derided Nemesis, where the circumstances behind Janeway's certain remark to Picard that "you're the closest ship" were engineered by Shinzon to ensure Picard's appearance. Don't the Vulcans have any ships of their own, for example? Those übercool ring ships, perhaps? And are there really no regular Starfleet officers (except Pike) on or above Earth, leaving inexperienced cadets in various stages of training as the only available personnel? Quite a shoddily run organization, this alternate-timeline Starfleet, if you ask me.
And, the accursed, abhorrent, abominable, atrocious, I-just-wanna-yell-at-the-screen lens flares were even more infuriating than I remember. They're everywhere, at every time, for no reason. I suppose someone somewhere thinks it is High Art Indistinguishable From Good Writing, just like the "I can't keep the camera steady even if I wanted to" approach (so expertly extended to CGI shots) of some other franchises I could mention. Really, this is just off the scale – any scale. How can they possibly think that inducing the audience to turn their eyes away from the movie as often as possible is a good cinematographic practice? Infuriating is indeed the word.
Turning to the second point – well, what was the point? Gene Roddenberry always insisted that Star Trek be about things, and not just "tell a story". A TOS writer once retold a pitch meeting he had had with The Great Bird, where Gene had asked, "What's this episode about?". The writer had started to explain something along the lines of, "Well, the crew beams down to this planet, and...", but Gene cut him short: "Yes, but what's it about?" What, I ask, was this movie about?
I'll tell you what it wasn't: to show how the original crew of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (no bloody A, B, C or D) got together. Yes, everyone, including the TV guide review I read just prior to watching it now, as well as the producers, will tell you that that was precisely what it was – despite the fact that the movie itself goes out of its way to establish the opposite. By arriving in the past and destroying the USS Kelvin, Nero altered the flow of history as we know (knew) it, creating an alternate timeline which from that point is disparate from the one containing TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY. The subsequent coming-together of Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov and Scotty IS NOT the coming-together of the Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov and Scotty we met in TOS. Quoting Nero again: "That was another life."
What this is is a franchise reboot – make no mistake about it. The names are the same, many of the characteristics are the same, but that is the only relation that anything that happened in this movie has to the previously established Star Trek universe – and that is, still, my primary concern. The old is old, and the new is new – and never the twain shall meet. As it were. (See the link above for more elaborate thoughts on the subject.)
Short gripes:
There are some redeeming qualities, though:
All in all, Star Trek is now, in my view, heading in the completely wrong direction. (What would have been the right direction, you ask? Well, one good candidate would have been the Romulan wars/founding of the Federation, as was once planned. If only...)
