Great Movie, Just Not Quite Your Daddy's Star Trek

Rating: 8/10 (24 May 2009)

I'm not a Trekker, but did follow and enjoy the series and movies.
I walked away from this movie with good, but also mixed opinion.
However, there are some aspects that were spectacular.
Hands down, the award for best portrayal of an existing Star Trek character has to go to Karl Urban. Karl completely and convincingly nailed the part of Lenard McCoy. Deforest Kelly would have been proud!
Next in that category goes to Simon Pegg for his portrayal of Montgomery Scott. Admittedly, some of that credit is due to the development of the original character throughout the Star Trek movies, which allowed one to see Simon's portrayal as how Mr. Scott might have started out. Nevertheless, Simon definitely had the part down.
Zoe Saldana as Uhura was convincing enough as well, again due to character development in the later Star Trek movies, which provided audiences with a deeper look into the original characters. There were however, some things about Uhura that many might be saying Wow!, Huh!!?
Zachary Quinto as young Spock was also convincing but perhaps a bit more (openly?) emotional than the Spock most of us have grown accustom to. However, you can absolutely accept this younger version of Spock.
John Cho as Sulu was also a good fit, but again was somewhat of an expanding on minor glimpses into the original character in the original series. It nevertheless worked in this film.
Lastly, Chris Pine as Kirk was initially hard for me at least to accept. However, by the end of the movie I could definitely see this character as how Shatner's Kirk might have started out.
Overall, the casting was excellent and well performed by all.
Having said all that, the movie was also extremely entertaining, but the high marks end there.
The Romulans, renegade or not, were just not very convincing Romulans. While the Romulans are suppose to less emotionally evolved "cousins" of the Vulcans, these guys were just a tad bit too emotional, if not undisciplined, for my taste. Yeah, we have seen emotional Romulans and Vulcans throughout the series and the movies, but I just did not get these guys. They seemed more human than Romulan.
Other than getting us all up to speed on the younger years of our favorite characters, the plot really does sort of go where no Trek has gone before. I had been forewarned that "liberties" had been taken with this movie and they definitely did that, which I am sure many of the hard core Trekkers will take issue with.
At the risk of spoiling the movie, lets just say that writers, producers, and director, definitely took liberties with this one by basically reinventing the entire future of the federation as we all came to know it beyond this period in time.
Great way to both cover their continuity behinds and perhaps even pave a road for a completely new Star Trek series and movies.
Overall, a great movie if you enjoyed the original series and are NOT a hard core Trekker.