I prefer not to kick off a movie review with a Kanye West quote, especially a review of a sci-fi film, but in the words of Yeezus > "I don't wanna say nothing wrong. But it'd be wrong if I didn't say nothing." So, although I was on the fence in regards to writing a review of this film because I felt I had little to say, I concluded that as a viewer, as a lover of cinema, I am obliged to say something.
Unless you're a fan of the Star Trek franchise, do not watch this movie. I will not blame you for being thrown off guard by the glaring reviews, but upon inspecting individual impressions of the film, every one and their mothers that loved it, loved it because it was faithful to the original series or because it washed away the bad taste from Into Darkness. Besides, the average rating for the movie is 6.9/10... so, do yourself a favour and don't be misled by the 85% on Rotten Tomatoes.
If you can't tell already, I did not like this film. It's not as bad as The Legend of Tarzan, but that film at least had the decency to hold my attention. Which is precisely why I was on the fence reviewing this film. I'm not certain I was conscious the entire time. This rarely happens to me, but I can recall certain moments in the film where I forgot I was in the cinemas. My mind was occupied thinking about The Killing Joke (which I'm watching in cinemas tomorrow) and intending to watch The Bourne Identity when I get home (which, thank god, was a good film).
The sad thing, or I dunno, the good thing, was that the first 20 minutes were promising. The earlier segments of the film left a good taste in my mouth because they reminded me a lot of Mass Effect. Just hanging around in The Citadel or The Normandy. Anyone with a decent understanding of film making would know where logically to go from there. How wrong I was.
The rest of the film was an action sequence. Which I couldn't care less for, since there was barely any character and writing for me to latch onto. If I don't care for the character aspect of the film, I will not care for your action sequences. I don't know about you, but my attention spam can only be stretched for so long... especially since the action in this film is bland. To it's credit, the film is visually beautiful in parts, and the action sequences are no exception, but there is a difference between cinematography in an action sequence, and choreography. So, whilst the camera angles were inventive and the colour palette was striking, the composition of the action sequences lacked originality or weight.
To be fair, the performances were all around fine. Chris Pine genuinely surprised me, Quinto is always a pleasure to have around (unless you're a Hitman movie), and Simon Pegg is delightful, Sofia Boutella was fun, Karl Urban worked pretty well with Quinto, Idris Elba is fine, if not allowed to breath (because of the damn script). There are funny moments in this film - both in dialogue & physical comedy, but there's very little of that in the way of extraneous action sequences, which 80% of this film is composed of.
I'm surprised I'm one of the only human beings complaining about the CGI. There is a lot of it in the film, particularly settings, and you'd be hard pressed to find convincing computer generated work in this film.
Assuming you enjoy good writing, don't watch this film. People will rave on about this film's character development, when they literally have a character explain the villain's motivation. It is the epitome of "telling and not showing."
Save up your money for The Killing Joke or something.
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