Outstanding just Outstanding

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2010)

First I have to qualify myself. I'm only an original Star Trek guy (including the movies with the original cast), I'm not a Next Generation or other brand of Star Trek fan in the least.
You really need four things to make these go, when the characters are so entrenched in our culture - 1) great casting, 2) good plot, 3) good dialogue, and 4) good special effects/action. The casting of the two leads Kirk and Spock are just fantastic, they are better than copies, they are just so damn good. Uhura, Scotty and Sulu, if somewhat different in appearance, are still very acceptable. The only off character is McCoy, but I never felt he was essential to the show and the new guy at least says the same sort of cranky stuff the original did.
The plot of this movie is very good, the only problem I have with it (and it gets docked a point for it) is that it invalidates some important "facts" from the original, such as the existence of Vulcan and Spock's mother being around. Seems like they could have had their cake and ate it too rather than diverging as much as they did from the original source.
Dialogue is good, while part of Scotty's character was his very healthy look, the new guy besides being a skinny geek gets the brogue and the lines spot on. The special effects are also very good.
Nice effort, let's see if the studios do what they usually do, drop their standards on the sequel and end up with trash for Star Trek II. But a very nice first effort.