Slashfilm Review says Trek XI is "utterly shallow"

[Falcor5]

Pretty tough review over on slashfilm of Trek XI. Here is an excerpt:

Ultimately, this film succeeds on two counts. Firstly, it is an ice-creamy indulgence for fans of the original Trek and, as addressed above, offers a lot of giggles on this front. Secondly, however, it works as an accessible, low-effort entertainment for Saturday night audiences. Where it fails is, frankly, just about everywhere else. The film is utterly shallow and offers only a rote portrayal of great tragedy; only a superficial set of motivations for most of the actions portrayed. The human condition may be denoted by some of the drama, but it certainly isn’t explored.

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/04/20/movie-review-star-trek/

Hopefully they were just expecting to much as most reviews have been great! Sounds like they think Trek XI is a fun mindless popcorn flick but not much more.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

...and The Wrath of Khan was simply about revenge , and even that revenge was not given any form of justification or much explanation within the film itself -- but TWoK was still a great film. TWoK was about characters, not plot.

I haven't seen this film yet, so I really can't comment on its quality...but what is Slashfilm expecting?

 

[The Habs Fan]

It's still a positive review, just the most negative one so far.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I thought it was a thoughtful, fair-minded review. The reviewer just didn't think it's a great film. He summarizes his opinion very well:

While I don’t think I’ll be recommending this film passionately to people for years to come, I’ll recommend it to plenty as a fun current release come May and, as for myself, I’m sure I’ll revisit it a few times in future, as light, easy entertainment.

In that last regard, the movie is at least the equal of the other Star Trek films.

 

[Franklin]

Seems consistent with other reviews so far. All the criticisms are focusing on how the plot lacks depth. Whether or not that's a deal breaker for the reviewer, and therefore reason to trash the entire movie, seems to depend on how they feel about the rest of the production.

I have a feeling we're going to enjoy this movie the way one enjoys a really good bowl of ice cream. It's great while you're eating it, but when it's gone, it's hardly going to linger fondly in your memory the way the best Thanksgiving dinners you've ever had do.

This isn't Transformers (thank God), but I really do hope Orci and Kurtzman can improve their storytelling skills even more in the sequel. Or, they bring in help. Apparently it wouldn't hurt to put a little of their fathers's Trek into their Trek.

 

[Falcor5]

I thought it was a thoughtful, fair-minded review. The reviewer just didn't think it's a great film. He summarizes his opinion very well:

While I don’t think I’ll be recommending this film passionately to people for years to come, I’ll recommend it to plenty as a fun current release come May and, as for myself, I’m sure I’ll revisit it a few times in future, as light, easy entertainment.

In that last regard, the movie is at least the equal of the other Star Trek films.

I agree it was a very fair and well thought out review. And with the current economy this could be just the kind of movie that does great numbers. A movie where people can just relax and forget their troubles and enjoy the action with not much thought needed.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I have a feeling we're going to enjoy this movie the way one enjoys a really good bowl of ice cream. It's great while you're eating it, but when it's gone, it's hardly going to linger fondly in your memory the way the best Thanksgiving dinners you've ever had do.

That would make it the first Trek movie I've liked as much as I like ice cream.

 

[SonicRanger]

This isn't Transformers (thank God), but I really do hope Orci and Kurtzman can improve their storytelling skills even more in the sequel. Or, they bring in help. Apparently it wouldn't hurt to put a little of their fathers's Trek into their Trek.

Did everyone forget that the script was rushed to completion before the writers' strike and couldn't be revised?

 

[The Habs Fan]

This isn't Transformers (thank God), but I really do hope Orci and Kurtzman can improve their storytelling skills even more in the sequel. Or, they bring in help. Apparently it wouldn't hurt to put a little of their fathers's Trek into their Trek.

Damon Lindelof is co-writing the script for the sequel with them.

 

[Franklin]

This isn't Transformers (thank God), but I really do hope Orci and Kurtzman can improve their storytelling skills even more in the sequel. Or, they bring in help. Apparently it wouldn't hurt to put a little of their fathers's Trek into their Trek.

Did everyone forget that the script was rushed to completion before the writers' strike and couldn't be revised?

Good point. And, it couldn't be sharpened on the set.

But that doesn't change the basic story. Especially the contrivances and coincidences. Or its emotional level. The reviewer writes of "a rote portrayal of great tradegy." If it's what I think it is, it's a sad way to have handled that level of destruction. Something like that required depth and maybe even pathos -- at least Trek pathos. Maybe even Nero could've expressed some regret after seeing the scope of what he had wrought.

Also, to be fair, the story is essentially about how Kirk and Spock (and the others) ended up serving together. The rest of the story is backdressing to that. (Which again raises a question in my mind about why such an act of violence with the depth and scope and sadness as the one that occurs in this movie happens. It itself could've been the focus of a movie on its own.)

In the end, at least that they seem to have the characters down well and have them where they belong now allows them to dwell on a story of greater scope appropriate for those characters in the next movie.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

This isn't Transformers (thank God), but I really do hope Orci and Kurtzman can improve their storytelling skills even more in the sequel. Or, they bring in help. Apparently it wouldn't hurt to put a little of their fathers's Trek into their Trek.

Did everyone forget that the script was rushed to completion before the writers' strike and couldn't be revised?

Probably because that's not quite so. The script was completed, approved for production, budgeted and so forth in reasonable time before the writer's strike.

The complaints about the strike were that it's common for dialogue and sometimes whole scenes to be rewritten during a film's production and that was supposedly not possible in this case because production took place during the strike.

The only indication ever given that this was in actuality in any way problematic for Star Trek was an anecdote related online by a writer who walked the picket line one day with J.J. Abrams. Commiserating about the strike, Abrams offered that he had come up with a terrific line one day on the set and realized that he couldn't give it to the actors because that would be a violation of the strike rules. And as far as we know to this day that's the only "problem" the strike represented for this film.

 

[Jimmy_C]

I think it is funny how there are 7 Fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, 6 good reviews in this thread, countless reviews from fan sites like AIC, Trekweb, and Trekmovie, and 1 bad review. Yet the negative review is all people think matters. Over 93% of the reviews said it wasn't a shallow or a poor film, yet some people already concluded that it has no intellectual meaning. I find this very peculiar. When most people find the new movie compelling enough, concluding that the new movie is shallow from the opinion of 1 or 2 detractors is not logical.

And honestly, Star Trek was never that intellectual. Even episodes like Court Martial or the Cage only barely scratch the surface, stating a few ideas, but never delving too much into their implications. It usually just posed questions and the "obvious" answer about moral issues. The Cage is a case in point, while Court Martial is a good example of it. The moral was not to rely on computer evidence too much without verifying they haven't been tampered with. Um, duh! It is a good episode, but not as deep as some make it out to be.

 

[Falcor5]

I think it is funny how there are 7 Fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, 6 good reviews in this thread, countless reviews from fan sites like AIC, Trekweb, and Trekmovie, and 1 bad review. Yet the negative review is all people think matters. Over 93% of the reviews said it wasn't a shallow or a poor film, yet some people already concluded that it has no intellectual meaning. I find this very peculiar. When most people find the new movie compelling enough, concluding that the new movie is shallow from the opinion of 1 or 2 detractors is not logical.

Who said this is the only review that matters? Have you even read any of this thread?

 

[Jimmy_C]

I think it is funny how there are 7 Fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, 6 good reviews in this thread, countless reviews from fan sites like AIC, Trekweb, and Trekmovie, and 1 bad review. Yet the negative review is all people think matters. Over 93% of the reviews said it wasn't a shallow or a poor film, yet some people already concluded that it has no intellectual meaning. I find this very peculiar. When most people find the new movie compelling enough, concluding that the new movie is shallow from the opinion of 1 or 2 detractors is not logical.

Who said this is the only review that matters? Have you even read any of this thread?

I wasn't referring to just this thread.

 

[Messianni]

I'm a fairly frequent visitor of Slashfilm and I find time and time again Brendon Connelly's reviews (and views on film in general) to be in complete polar opposite of my own, so I take no stock in this review at all. Coming from anyone else it would have held some interest. This is the same guy who hated The Dark Knight and liked Crank 2: High Voltage.

I'm actually a little surprised Peter Scrietta, the main editor of the site, wasn't the one to reveiw it.

 

[Scarpad]

I still don't understand why this story could of not been told without Time Travel and revising all that came before it, why isn't the story of Jim Kirk Interesting enough to do that?

 

[Captain X]

I haven't seen this film yet, so I really can't comment on its quality...but what is Slashfilm expecting?

Substance? Plot that makes sense? Character depth? Relevance?

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

I think it is funny how there are 7 Fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, 6 good reviews in this thread, countless reviews from fan sites like AIC, Trekweb, and Trekmovie, and 1 bad review. Yet the negative review is all people think matters. Over 93% of the reviews said it wasn't a shallow or a poor film, yet some people already concluded that it has no intellectual meaning. I find this very peculiar. When most people find the new movie compelling enough, concluding that the new movie is shallow from the opinion of 1 or 2 detractors is not logical...

That's why I think rottentomatoes.com is a good tool. You don't only get a larger sampling of reviews, but you can easily read those reviews to see why the reviewer rated it the way he or she did.

On several occasions I found myself finding the aspect of a film that the reviewer didn't like not relevant to me.

 

[Goliath]

Interesting review.

I still don't understand why this story could of not been told without Time Travel and revising all that came before it, why isn't the story of Jim Kirk Interesting enough to do that?

Could have. Or could've. Not could of.

People who write "could of" instead of "could've" make themselves look like illiterate morons.

I'm not saying you're an illiterate moron. But that's how you make yourself look when you write something like that.

Get it right--and make yourself look as intelligent and well-educated as you truly are.

 

[Aragorn]

I think it is funny how there are 7 Fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, 6 good reviews in this thread, countless reviews from fan sites like AIC, Trekweb, and Trekmovie, and 1 bad review. Yet the negative review is all people think matters.

Well, at least one poster so far in here probably only cares about the negative review and even relishes it.