[Warning – Semi-spoiler.] I regret to say that this movie was pretty crappy. While I must admit when I heard the plot was about a “fountain of youth” I was sceptical. However, the plot did hold potential (the interesting twist where the Baku and Son’a turned out to be the same race, and parallels with world politics today). As usual, it was poorly executed (Frake’s fault?).
The story just appeared too “loose”. The “encounter” between Troi and Riker turned out to be merely an excuse to explain the removal of the beard. Compromises throughout – by the Admiral and defecting Son’a – served to continually destroy any hope of creating tension. The action was detached, suspenseless, and culminated in a fight (I don’t know if you can even call it that) between two geriatrics. Battle scenes were also pretty crappy – they did a good job with the trailer, but in the movie all the flaws were exposed. I think the Enterprise only fired its weapons like twice in the whole movie. Even when they are high-tailing it into the nebula-cloud thing, and are being fired upon, no one thinks to fire aft torpedoes or aft phasers. The humour wasn’t too bad, but appeared to be tacked on and unconnected.
Once again, another Star Trek has produced a completely unmemorable music score. Why don’t they integrate that type of music that they play with the trailer into the movie? Get the heart-pumping a bit more. Bit of a disappointment this one. I hope, if they release a Star Trek X, it’ll be a helluva lot better. All in all – I don’t regret seeing this movie. But that’s just because I’m a die-hard Trekkie :).
Wow this movie really makes you think about terrorism and the fragility of democracy in the western world. No more than 15 terrorists bring New York into martial law and chaos. Good movie. It’s not an action movie, so don’t go to this looking for some typical Bruce Willis action. One more thing… Bruce Willis as a General? Nah. Doesn’t work.