I watched the first film of the Star Trek reboot, the one from 2009. It wasn't awful, but I can't say it was very good either. They did a few things well, I'll grant. Spock was good, Bones was good, and I liked how they tied it into the previous continuity with Nimoy showing up. But there was one enormous flaw that ruined the movie for me, and his name was James T. Kirk. Kirk sucked. He really, really sucked. He was an annoying, unlikable, obnoxious, unpleasant asshole whose constant douchebaggery was inexplicably rewarded with promotion and unwarranted praise throughout the entire film. The logic of this movie seems to be that hey, this is Kirk, instantly recognizable as the hero of the franchise, and therefore, he doesn't need to actually act like a hero to gain the audience's loyalty. Or like a competent officer. Or even like a decent human being. Well, it doesn't work like that.
And before anyone starts with crap like "But Shatner's Kirk was the exact same," or "You can't just have a handsome nice guy running around being heroic," or "He is persistent and a heroic," don't. Because no, he wasn't, yes, you can, and no, he isn't. Shatner played Kirk as being supremely confident, yes. But, and here's the key difference between them, his Kirk could walk the walk as well as talk the talk. He wasn't always right, but he proved again and again that he was a brilliant tactician, a great leader, and a loyal friend. He earned every ounce of smugness that he ever displayed. Pine's Kirk did not. He's a cocky little bastard right from the start of the movie, long before he ever did anything worthwhile, and even by the end of it, he still hadn't done much to be proud of. If anyone was the real hero of this film, it was Spock. Like I said, he was handled very well.