Star Trek

         Feels strange not putting any subtitle on this film, but superficial problems like that I think caused a lot of people to dismiss this film as "not Star Trek" at all. And I am here to tell you they are wrong. This is certainly not a perfect movie and some of the plot holes are still as huge as the first day I watched it. But what this film does do so well is capture the feel of Star Trek in terms of how diversity is so important to making the Federation strong and how you have to just never give up when facing a dire threat. I know I have spent a lot of time lately complaining about ENT and I don't retract any of that, but what ENT did do well was show a universe where things were far less stable and safe for humanity and how well we deal with it and this movie does that much better than ENT. Also the depiction of Vulcans bothered me a lot less this time after having seen what they went through in ENT. Seeing Leonard Nemoy again was also awesome and he did an even better job than I remembered, but I also wish they had let him be more subtle in his instructions to Kirk. He tells Kirk everything he needs to know in a comment about how strongly he feels, but Kirk fails to take the hint so he just straight up tells him how to compromise his past self. I am sure I will get to lots more knitpicking below, but keep in my that I really enjoy this film.
         We open with the strongest scene in the film with the USS Kelvin being destroyed as George Kirk sacrifices himself to save his wife and son. Cut to a rather silly scene of young Kirk destroying a corvette to show how rebellious he is. Then he is hitting on Uhura in a bar a few years later and gets his ass kicked by a bunch of starfleet dudes for his trouble. In the end Pike shows up and challenges him join up. Of course he does and after some academy shenanigans we get the hella lame Kobayashi Maru scene were he cheats so obviously that it is just straight up dumb and kinda misses the point on Kirk. But before he is ruled against war were declared and everybody but him is assigned to go serve on ships since they apparently have a bunch more ships that fully trained people to fly them (this is not generally how military budgets work). Bones gets him on though and before you can get your bearings he has saved the day by warning Pike about the attack by Nero. They still get attacked though but Nero recognizes the Enterprise and demands Pike come meet him which allows Pike to drop Sulu, Kirk and some red shirt onto the drill that is boring through Vulcan. 
         After the red shirt dies and Sulu wins his sword fight they stop the drill, but it is too late and the red matter gets dropped into Vulcan. There is a narrow beam up escape and Spock heads to the surface to save his parents and other senior Vulcans. His mother dies though which clearly upsets him, so much so that he ends up stranding Kirk on a frozen moon/planet within walking distance of old Spock and young Scotty. After talking with old Spock Kirk gets beamed onto Enterprise along with Scotty and Kirk confronts Spock to the point of losing control so Kirk takes over. They come up with a plan to beam the two of them onto Nero's ship to stop him from destroying Earth. Spock ends up stealing old Spock's ship while Kirk fights Nero. Spock destroys the drill which distracts Nero and allows Kirk to save Pike. Spock flies his red matter filled ship into Nero's hulking mining ship as Kirk and Pike are beamed to safety. In the end Kirk is given a promotion to captain of the Enterprise.

         Review: While there are lots of problems with the story in terms of making sense it nails the characters and the feel of Star Trek so much better than any TNG movie other than maybe First Contact. Still very enjoyable to watch.

7 out of 10