

The only one that felt like Trek was the one written by an actual Trek fan and generally talented storyteller, Simon Pegg.
And agree with other comments that the cast was really good. Just had horrible stories and mediocre (at best) direction.
You can tell that knowing the source material on franchise movies matters: I couldn’t stand JJ’s Trek but I really liked Ep7. (Ep 9 was decent, but things were so off the rails after ep 8 there wasn’t much to recover)







To me it felt more like Trek because it was at least occasionally philosophical and moralistic. Not just a stop-the-terrorist action movie.
It was fast from a perfect film though, don’t get me wrong. Plot holes and idiot plots. I’d still choose to watch a lot of other stuff before it. But it’s middle of the pack for Trek overall, IMO. Still beats ST: 3, Insurrection, Nemesis, etc