I saw this movie two hours ago and I can't remember how it started. Ah. Diplomatic mission to offer a truce artifact to one of the warring sides from the other. It does not go well. Just a tad shy of 3 years into the 5 year mission and Kirk is bored enough to take a desk job. Screenplay set-up signifying it's all about to get much less stultifying. I don't know enough about camera angle choices to know if that's what makes the film feel disjointed, or the script, or editing chops, but something certainly felt unconnected. I started noticing details I had no business noticing. Everybody's hair is bigger. I watched Galaxy Quest recently, and when Krall showed up I choked on popcorn. In fact, prosthetics needed an above the title billing. Running from intruders in a dark corridor, I could see Uhura's earrings glinting. If I could see those, the enemy could, too. The device designed to End The Universe is too much like Big Hero 6. The space station too much like Elysium. And the jumpstart of a starship too much like Furious 7. One of these days in the near future scenic designers will stop putting skyscrapers on hula hoops in deep space. And it's a space station - where are all the people running to when the bad stuff starts happening? It's a scene device that needs to go. The Bad Dude airship docking station is right out of Independence Day. Can we get a little new here? Visual effects are gooey (literally) with some stuff that may or may not be a cue to the bee reference, and is at one point, squished out I don't know how while Kirk rides a vintage motorcycle in circles. And then the squish hardens. I also don't know how, or what that goo was supposed to keep in or out. Much of this is superfluous, but the story was not interesting enough to make me stop looking around. There are way too many wire bundles, a feature of Star Trek Next Gen Borg episodes. When we finally get the Bad Dude's backstory, it isn't enough. Kirk's bored, Bad Dude is disappointed, and how the hell Uhura survives every encounter requires too much suspension of belief. I also noticed that the guys in the theater were sporting ball caps with sunglasses perched on the brim. Noticing fashion in the cinema is not why I go to the movies. Read this week that Chris Hemsworth has signed on to the next Star Trek as George Kirk. Does not bode well for new better adventures.
