JJ did not make Star Trek interesting, he made it a fast paced mystery box laden action movie. Just like with Star Wars. They just felt like generic action movies, but with more mystery boxes that don’t pay off.
I think he made it interesting to younger generations with much shorter attention span. Even though I am not that generation, I still find it interesting because it is more dynamic. It doesn’t have the moral/ethical dilemmas like in TNG, DS9 and others though.