Best Star trek movies:

1. Wrath of Khan.
2. Insurrection.
3. Generations.

There are other Star Trek movies that are good, but not in the Star Trek way. Star trek is about a cooperative team working to solve socially realistic problems in a science fiction setting. Having every movie be about epic confrontations and the few epic characters (like Kirk & Spock, Kirk & Spock, Data and Picard, Kirk & Spock) just plain sucks. It's boring as hell.

About special effects, those look better than what the prequels gave us, but even the prequels were nice in a way (as far as special effects go). The problem with modern movies is the way that special effects don't serve to heighten emotional and conceptual reactions.