First Contact is a safe movie, appropriate for the Berman era. As with TNG's three spinoff shows, it makes a couple of adjustments that were probably considered bold at the time, but which seem pretty obvious in retrospect. It plays to the most obvious strengths of TNG... if those strengths are Time Travel, Borg, and the A-Plot/B-Plot formula (That last being also one of the weaknesses that Insurrection played to).
And it is a producer's movie. Because Jonathan Frakes is a producer's director (as is David Carson). It does not re-interpret ST in any significant way, but keeps safely within the Berman parameters of style and continuity. Frakes' cinematic vision for First Contact (Let's make an action movie) was seemingly supported by the studio, Berman, and the Moore/Braga script. He is too gracious, and not hungry enough, to be the type to challenge a producer or studio, making him... well, safe. And his name carries more weight than any other TV director they might have picked.
When Berman team considered Nimoy to direct Generations, they mostly did so hoping he'd agree to cameo. But they also brought him in too late in the process to offer any input. They wanted a director-for-hire; they wanted TSFS Nimoy rather than TVH Nimoy.
All of the TOS films (but one) are director's movies. And all the TNG movies (but one) are producer's movies (They finally got stuck with a sort-of "actual" director, one the studio didn't want, after the studio was mostly done with them too).
The Abrams movies, love them or hate them, are director's movies. I've never seen a Fast [Or] Furious movie so I cannot speak to Justin Lin's level of influence.
A producer's movie can be GOOD. Given a well enough oiled machine (as TNG/Berman Trek was, post S4) it can even come with some supposed assurance of not being terrible. But it can never be great.
