I am not always a fan of reboots, except in the case of Batman Begins and Star Trek. 
Reboots often do not work simply because no level of respect or homage is shown to some of the previous installments, but JJ Abrams made Star Trek in a way that every film with the original cast of the 80s and 90s were relevant and simply occured during that time. Now, that is purely brilliant!
By now, I've come to strongly dislike The New Generations films and have strongly disliked 2 of the old crew films. Star Trek is one that, not only do I enjoy, but I just love it so much. Currently, I am making a top 25 favorite films list and had I not being half done, Star Trek would make a place in my top 25!
Spoilers throughout: Star Trek begins with a sequence regarding James T. Kirk's parents, who are aboard a spaceship called the Kelvin, which is suddenly under attack by Romulans following a lightning strike in space. George Kirk, father of James, is put as captain of the Kelvin and within the 12 minutes of captain, he saved the lives of 800 people by allowing them to escape whilst taking his life to defend them. In this ensuing chaos, James T. Kirk is born and his mother is able to escape. This was "the" perfect start to a Star Trek film, carefully and brilliantly telling us a little about how Kirk was born and what his father was like. This makes all the more sense and all the maturity into previous installments when we realize that Kirk is actually attempting to live up to his father's heroics. This sequence was the perfect way for JJ Abrams to have his audience completely engaged in the story by providing amazing visuals and action scenes and extremely well done storytelling.
'Star Trek' then tells the story about James T. Kirk who tries to live up to his father's legacies and become who his father would've wanted him to be whilst Vulcan Spock decides to not attend the Vulcan Science Academy, regardless of his extreme wisdom, but instead attend Starfleet as an officer. This was fantastic! The scenes with Vulcan early on were absolutely necessary and brilliantly done, paying complete respect to Spock from the earlier films and TV shows.
If this film has any issue for me, it is actually the villain who is definitely a tad weak and not extremely threatening. Thankfully, this is made up by fantastic writing and direction, mindblowing visual effects and action sequences and an extremely emotional storyline that dwells deep into the characters of Kirk and Spock. Whilst everyone liked Spock and Kirk from the old films, never was there any depth to the characters to this extent and so, when JJ Abrams decides to add extreme depth to his characters, it could either work or not. In this case, it worked and worked brilliantly.
Though for most of the time, I regretted watching every previous Star Trek film, by now I am completely pleased by this. Not only does it flesh out the characters more but it makes for a more mindblowing and entertaining experience. None of the other Star Trek films were this fast, this action packed or this mindblowing for its time period. However, the best thing about the film is the relationship between Spock and Kirk, who are portrayed absolutely brilliantly by much younger and much more active actors, Zachary Quint and Chris Pine. The way they become friends throughout the course of the film is done extremely well and in a realistic manner as is the rest of this film. More specifically, one of the best aspects of the film is how JJ Abrams had a character called 'Spock Prime' who is portrayed by Leonard Nimoy from the old Star Trek films. This character was extremely interesting and the way they incorporated him as a man from the future, which clearly tells us that the events in 'Wrath of Khan' take place due to the fact that Spock Prime recites the lines "I have and shall always be, your friend!" Lines that are direct references to Wrath of Khan, my second favorite Trek film, were a delight to be heard in this film!
If any director needs to learn how to reboot a film, it is most definitely essential to get a tutoring class by JJ Abrams, who has successfully turned a slow and vastly inconsistent film franchise into an epic reboot that is much more lively, visually stunning and action packed. Every actor does play their part really well, even those such as Simon Pegg and Zoe Saldana. Star Trek is most definitely my favorite movie of the year and one of my top 5 favorite films of that decade.
Grade- 10/10
Mindblowing in every aspect. Quite possibly, the greatest reboot of all time.
Whilst the previous installment nearly ensured that I would die halfway throughout the film, Star Trek: Nemesis for the most part keeps me rather engaged in the film even if there is almost nothing special about the film, except the fact that I do not need to suffer by watching another TNG film.
Tom Hardy plays a clone of Picard who is slowly dying and must need Picard's blood to stop the process of his death after an incident involving time. This clone also attempts to destroy Earth for some reason.
What I hate about most Trek films is the fact that they do not properly dedicate enough time to explain the plot. When you take a look at the original trilogy, just in terms of how they explain the plot, it is done simplistically yet effectively, ensuring that even the dumbest can follow the storyline. Most of the Star Trek films suffer from extremely poor writing and execution, Nemesis is one of them. Despite this, the basic premise is enough to keep one engaged throughout the film even if it isn't properly explained.
Patrick Stewart never throughout the series seemed to give an exceptional performance but always a passable performance as Picard. Never does he give a performance, even to the standards of William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy from the original films. The rest of the cast do a decent job, even Tom Hardy, who I've grown to love from films such as The Dark Knight Rises and Inception. All the performances are decent with none ever grabbing one's attention, especially mine.
As ordinary as the performances are, this film has some truly great character moments mainly with Data at the end of the film. The pacing is nothing but decent as most of the "bad" Trek films have. There are a few moments when the story becomes extremely intense and exciting, thanks to some fine action sequences in this film. The effects seem to have definitely improved from the horrible effects of the previous nightmare.
This film does a rather decent job and bidding a much needed farewell to our characters and by the end of the film, despite yet feeling unsatisfying, I was thankful that these old Trek films were done! Star Trek Nemesis is nothing but an ordinary Trek film with some surprisingly good action, decent acting, poor writing and direction in some ways but also decent in other ways. 'Nemesis' is most definitely not worse than the previous installment and by no stretch one of the worst, but also isn't very interesting.
Grade- 6/10
This film, being the ninth in the installment to the Star Trek franchise suffers in the same way that all the odd numbered Star Trek films have: It's a fail! After the fantastic film that was 'Star Trek: First Contact', the director and writer to decided to create a ninth installment to this franchise that would fail, just to what..keep the pattern going?
All the bad Star Trek films suffer in the same way. They have bad direction, lousy writing, poor explanation of the plot, uninteresting characters and have extremely uninteresting special effects and cinematography. When we look at the previous installment, there were some fantastic special effects and good action sequences, had great writing and directing and had an interesting plot. This film, is Star Trek: First Contact or even Star Trek: Wrath of Khan done horribly.
During this film, Captain Picard played by Patrick Stewart, learns that there is a Federation dispute between the Ba'ku and the Son'a. Apparently the Son'a have begun a plot to wipe out the Ba'ku in order to regenerate the city from scrap. Hearing about this, following a malfunction of the often frustrating Data, Captain Picard and his Enterprise must prevent this Federation dispute from being completed.
The plot to the film was rather difficult for me to follow simply because there wasn't enough explanation of the plot. This film is close to unbearable for me, almost topping Generations in its horribility factor. The characters are extremely uninteresting, even the ones we already know about and the romance plot in this film with Picard and the Ba'ku is extremely stupid and it made me want to grab a phaser and kill myself! The plot itself nearly made me kill myself, it was that frustrating. If these Star Trek odd numbered films do one thing, it is that they nearly make me want to commit suicide- that is all about Star Trek III: Search for Spock.
The special effects were truly bad in my opinion, in this film. First Contact had some great effects and an interesting story. It had fine cinematography but this film throws aside all the great things about First Contact. Apparently this film was the first to use CGI effects but boy, does everything look cheaper than ever before. It is clearly evident that when it comes to an odd numbered Star Trek film, that the director and writer completely ignore everything good about the predecessor. Let us pray that Star Trek: Into Darkness, being the twelth installment can live up to the hype...and the bloody PATTERN
The reason that the New Generations films do not work well, except for First Contact which was something miraculous, is the fact that the characters simply cannot measure about to those of the original crew. They aren't interesting.
Star Trek: Insurrection is everything horrible about the odd numbered Star Trek films and suffers considerably from lousy writing, bad direction, horrid special effects, uninteresting cinematography and most importantly, a terrible plot. If the plan of the film was to simply follow the pattern of the odd numbered films, then this film certainly did its job but I simply don't understand.
Grade-3/10
Only one Star Trek film has received that rating and it was the first one, the 1979 film.
Reboots often do not work simply because no level of respect or homage is shown to some of the previous installments, but JJ Abrams made Star Trek in a way that every film with the original cast of the 80s and 90s were relevant and simply occured during that time. Now, that is purely brilliant!