Can you tell me how to tell if a film's "script, plot, pacing, characterization and acting suck"?
It all comes down to opinion, but I will add what I think about each one.
I don't recall much about the first movie from seeing it once after it was released, but I remember leaving
Into Darkness disappointed because of its simplistic plot (which I would use interchangeably with script).
Into Darkness (or any other movie) can be argued to rely on tropes (or, more specifically, overused cliches
which is getting into hipster territory). Feel free to lose hours browsing
this website. Now, using cliches too much can be seen very negatively because it doesn't require creativity. The same goes with a simplistic plot, one that may not require thoughtful character motivations, dialogue, symbolism, or any other literary technique and characterization.
A screenplay, or a script, is not entirely the same as a plot. Although the plot follows the direction of the screenplay, the script that has been written beforehand, so it does not account for the ultimate quality of the final product. So the screenplay can be considered as the original idea, and that can be criticized separately.
Pacing is a more specific idea that takes shape during editing. While the screenplay provides some direction for the tempo of each sequence, it really depends on the final speed of each scene. During scenes of suspense or increased action, the pace can become quicker. Visual media can have a confused pace if the speed of the camera and frequency of the cuts do not match what is occurring in the story.
Gravity, for example, has long takes but the erratic camera work makes up for the infrequently changing scenes.
Characterization is simply how the characters and their motivations and revealed, which is what the actors are supposed to represent. Subtle clues about the nature of each character are the best, without having to rely on dialogue explicitly describing the character's feelings, personality, or by using cliches (getting into hipster territory again). With a wide target audience, the characterization and characters in a movie may be simplified, or dumbed down, which can be the case with
Star Trek and many other action movies.
All these aspects do not even include the cinematography, which the excessive lens flare would be a notable part of. In terms of composition, cinematography borrows a lot from photography, which is a massive topic. How a scene is composed can reveal relationships between things, provide symbolism, foreshadowing, etc., or just be beautiful. But I don't want to spend three hours writing about examples.