I didn't mind the cast for the JJVerse, it was the writing that let them down in all 3 films although the 1st was the best, but let's be honest of all the trek films the only one that was really good was Wrath of Khan, the rest were all average or below so it should be expected that a Trek film will be "meh" and I think the reason for this is it just doesn't translate well on the big screen vs being a series, Trek never been about action but it's probably why Wrath is the best because it perfectly mixes action with Trek lore and the villain is superb and nobody really wins at the end
TMP is better than people give it credit for being. It's a re-tread in many ways of an existing TOS episode ("The Changeling") and the theatrical cut was pretty much unfinished. But it's beautifully shot, the Directors Edition fixes made it a much better film and nothing that came after would have been possible without it.
Wrath of Khan is a masterpiece, written in 12 days and made for pennies (Voyager's first episode cost more). A case study in what happens when you get TV guys (Harve Bennett, Joe Jennings...) together with a talented young writer-director and a cast on the top of their game.
Search for Spock suffers for being simply a way to get Spock back into the story. But it has high points - Chris Lloyd's Kruge, Shatner's acting in the scene where David is murdered, the gut-punch of the Enterprise being destroyed and ILM's VFX for that.
Voyage Home is a fun romp, one of the more Trek-ian stories (there's no real bad guy in it). The humour isn't forced, the cast all get to have fun, and it rounded out the II-III-IV trilogy nicely to get everyone back to where they needed to be.
Final Frontier had serious issues, most of which could have been solved if a) there hadn't been a writers strike, b) ILM had been available for the effects and c) the studio had trusted Shatner a bit more with the story and direction rather than dictating to him. But there are some good points - De Kelley is magnificent in the scene reliving McCoy's father dying, Shatner's Kirk Speech™ about needing his pain is pretty bloody good, the campfire talk between the trio about how they wind each other up in space and then spend shore leave together instead of with family that gets bookended at the end of the film by Kirk noting that he was wrong - he does have a family, and that family is Spock and Bones.
Undiscovered Country is a worthy send-off for the Original Series crew, with a 'real world' relevant plot (equal parts Chernobyl, the Berlin Wall coming down, the USSR dissolving, the assassinations of Lincoln, Anwar Sadat
et al.), tight direction and great VFX and set design. You wonder how it would have played out had Saavik been the 'mole' on the Enterprise as Nick Meyer originally intended rather than Valeris. Certainly would have made much of the story even darker than it turned out.
As for the TNG films - Generations is alright, First Contact very good indeed, Insurrection a bit iffy and Nemesis sucks.
Voyage Home was a fun romp, only really dated by the fact that the conceit was that they were travelling back to our present when the film was made rather than our past. Final Frontier...it needed more money and less of the studio controlling what Shatner did with it. It has a few neat scenes (campfire at night with the Kirk-Spock-McCoy trio for one), but it wasn't a great movie when it came out and time hasn't fixed that (best than can be said is that it's a better Trek film than Nemesis or Into Darkness IMO). Undiscovered Country was a great send-off for TOS, with a Real World™ relevant plot and great performances all around.
