My Review of JJ Abrams 'Star Trek'

I enjoyed it, but it also wasn't without it's flaws, so here's what I didn't like:
The under use of characters and overuse of others, first off Karl Urbans performance as Bones was the highlight of the film for me as the resemblance to DeForest Kelly in TOS was uncanny, really didn't have much to do and just stood in the background once the momentum got going after a promising introduction where we understand he's just been divorced and left with nothing but the option of joining Starfleet. While I understood this was an origin story, a little too much was given to Kirk and Spock, their respective childhood sequences could've been left out and I would've been happy. Young Kirk driving a Corvette off a cliff while listening to the Beastie Boys couldn't have been more out of place, and young Spock being subjected to insults from other Vulcan children, including one calling Spock's mother a whore and Spock's violent retaliation, weren't in good taste. So in place of these useless scene's which served no purpose, as we see more of Kirk being a directionless rebel as pointed out by Captain Pike, played by Bruce Greenwood, and Spock's heritage and the dilemma it presents are represented again and again, it would've been nice to have had a couple more scene's with that original dynamic of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. In terms of character overuse, Uhura, I don't think she really needed as much time as given, and her relationship with Spock, wow, couldn't really see that coming, it wasn't a completely convincing sort of relationship with only a very minor hint to it, but it still didn't satisfy.
Nero, Nero really was a bit underwhelming as well, his motivation's were only brushed over, and his recollection of the destruction of Romulus didn't have the emotional impact I expected, so with that it just comes down to the tried, and tried again path of making the villian for a Star Trek film one seeking vengeance against a main character, with the destruction of Earth a secondary motivation. Yawn. His time-travelling could've brought with it a bit more than what we've seen Khan, the Borg Queen, Shinzon and now Nero aimed to do, but it was nothing more than bloodlust and destruction he was interested in. I really wanted to see something more original, like an explicit directive to change history for the worst, as if he were acting on part of the Romulan Empire, say, a disgruntled group who didn't want the peace with the Federation that was implied at the end of Nemesis.
And Spock and Kirk, now Spock. It was inspired casting with Zachary Quinto as Spock, he looked the part, and his performance had been the most intriguing interpretation of the character for a while, from the logical Spock we know, to the extreme anger he displays, tenderness towards Uhura, definitely a highlight. And Chris Pine as Kirk...there were times I bought it, and other's where I just felt it was just a character who happened to have the same name. He definitely showed familiar qualities in Kirk, such as the pause in his speech and movement before his utterance of "Bones..." in the final scene, and the swagger and all too familiar bravado and of course, his nailing of a hot Orion was definitely dead on, but other times it wasn't THAT convincing a performance.
The same I felt for other characters, Sulu, Chekov and Scotty really didn't feel like the original characters, Anton Yelchin did great providing the perfect exaggerated Russian accent, and it was a nice homage that Sulu's combat experience amounted to fencing, Scotty's sense of humour too, Simon Pegg did well with the role, which was a bit limited though.
The story, yes, it 'reboots' Star Trek, as the trailer indicated, 'forget everything you know', all that has been built up for 40 years is now in another universe, literally. The addressing of this luckily wasn't too confusing and was put very simply, and wasn't really made to be as big an issue as it was, so we can put that to bed early. As I've discussed, Nero's plan really didn't boil down to anything more complex than getting payback, which was boringly predictable. Seeing Kirk go through Starfleet and Spock being there as well was more interesting than I expected, and it would've been nice if a bit more of that was seen. It was great to see Pike command the ship and his relationship worth Kirk, it may not have been much, but Bruce Greenwood's portrayal was convincing before he goes missing for the majority of the movie being tortured by Nero. The destruction of Vulcan was an interesting dynamic that could've gone either way, it certainly was a choice to cement this film in another reality from the one we know, and the ramification's of this will surely be seen in the next film beyond Spock's initial reaction.
Some other things. The Enterprise, how I hate it, it's ugly inside and out, Engineering for instance, did the budget run out prematurely? There's also some useless padding, I already mentioned the scene's with young Spock and Kirk as being unnecessary, well there's that, there's the scene with Kirk being terrorised by monsters on Delta Vega as well as the needless chase though Engineering after Kirk and Spock beam aboard the Enterprise and Scotty winds up in the plumbing where Kirk chases him round till he releases him, it all seemed rather useless, some other comedic scene's I wasn't fond of either, like Kirk's reaction to a viral infection causing his hands too swell up and lose the ability to speak. The effects of the ships going to warp were great, but not when we actually see the ship travelling at warp. The shaky cam was overused to the point of irritation, every fight scene, every battle scene was muddled and unclear, I understand this is the new trend in any film with an action sequence, but I hate it immensely. The primary action sequence weren't helped by this, and it felt like it was back to the normal Trek solution with Scotty ejecting the warp core (or was that cores as 5 things were ejected) to allow the Enterprise to escape from the singularities pull.
And old Spock coming back was great, Leonard Nimoy did really well as expected.
To sum it up it was an enjoyable movie, standouts were Karl Urban, Zachery Quinto, the effects. Chris Pines performance was satisfying but there were times where there could've been more, I wanted more from Nero's story than just another vengeful villain wanting to destroy Earth. I wasn't expecting much from the remaining cast and even then we didn't get much more from them than we did from Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and Sulu than we did in The Original Series. The supporting performances were good, Ben Cross as Sarek was a wonderful character, but he and Pike were the only characters who stood out as much as the main 3. Never the less it was still a great film, and perhaps a great introduction to this new stage of the franchise, it wasn't perfect, and I wasn't blown away, but I still liked it enough to give it 8/10. As for the ramifications, I guess it can still be as acceptable as people find The Animated Series, and judging from the reactions so far it looks like this is sadly the future of the series which has its merits but also its drawbacks, but it's still Star Trek to a degree and still has the potential to be something worthy to stand alongside the series that's been with us for nearly 40 years so only time will tell. Till then, I liked it, it's still quasi-Trek, but a damn good movie.