Cumberbatch is awesome, but was criminally misused in this film. When he was some lunatic trying to drive the Federation to war (a la Star Trek VI), he was interesting and enigmatic. Then when he just turns out to be inexplicably-white-dude-Khan...it stopped being interesting.
The vibe I've gotten from the Trek films is that they're entertaining popcorn movies, but they're utterly disposable. There's nothing about them that, in my mind, warrants people watching them in years to come, outside of having them bundled in a movie pack or something.
They aren't bad movies, they're just wasted opportunities. Really, at the core, they're movies for people who don't care about movies. They're the movies you put on in the background while you cook, or to watch the spectacle of ships exploding, rather than the movies you sit down and watch and want to pay attention to.
In 20 years, people will remember them...but only dimly. Kinda like my recollection of Jurassic Park 3, which I seem to recall had kids flying around and pteranadons, and some big spinosaurus thing...but otherwise which I cannot for the life of me recall with any detail. Oh, wait. Sam Neil was in it, too, which was nice. They're just part of a cadre of "also-ran" films.
Meh.
