Mixed feelings...

Rating: 7/10 (6 January 2010)

I use to watch the original series with my father back in the '60's and I watched it in syndication most of my adult life. I was not opposed to a reboot, but the time travel/ alternate reality thing has been done to death. While I enjoyed the film, there were some troubling plot holes here and there. Here's a few I noticed: (1) Vulcan is minutes away from being destroyed and Spock decides to beam down to save his folks. He goes to the turbo-lift and heads to the transporter room. Kirk and Sulu are falling without a chute and Chekov gets up and runs around a few corners and into the transporter room. He beams up Kirk and Sulu and THEN Spock comes walking in. Where did he go? (BTW, how come Chekov could beam up Kirk and Sulu when they were falling but not Spocks mom when she was falling?)
(2)Cadet Kirk convinces Capt Pike that they are 'warping' into a trap. Pike orders the shields to be raised and when they arrive at Vulcan, the ship gets hammered by debris. Shields do not deflect debris?
(3)Black holes either destroy things OR can be used to time travel. It just depends on the needs of the story.
(4)Why could no one detect the supernova heading towards Romulus? Spock was supposed to stop it, but it consumes the planet before anyone knew what happened?
(5)As others have pointed out, one doesn't need to drill any holes in a planet if you can create a black hole.
Although he doesn't come off quite as 'cool' as a younger Nimoy, I still liked the casting of Zachary Quinto as Spock and the casting of Karl Urban was inspired. The "Bones" McCoy character was a true embodiment rather than a cheap imitation. Zoe Saldana was fine as Uhuru although the Spock/Uhuru romance was a bit too out of character for Spock. Simon Pegg was amusing as a younger, higher-energy Scotty and John Cho filled the Sulu role adequately. The portrayal of Chekov was over the top and quite annoying to me. Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike injected just the right amount of gravitas and confidence into the role. I enjoyed every minute that he was on the screen. And that brings us to Chris Pine as Captain Kirk. As a fan of the original series, I found this Kirk to be lacking charm and grace. That 1960's Shatner had a swagger and was a master chess player in space battles. I'm not sure if it's the way it was written or his performance, but Pine plays Kirk as a class-A jerk with a bad attitude. The joy of the characters as they were originally written was the triangle of Spock, Kirk and McCoy. McCoy would loudly make his voice heard to the captain in one ear, with virtually no check on his emotions and Spock would be in his other ear, coolly stating the facts with no emotional bias. Kirk would take all of this input and more and invariably make the right choice. Pine's Kirk seems to get by on brashness, cockiness and determination.
(BTW, who had the awful idea of making a beer brewery into the Enterprise's engine room?)
The shaky cam bugged me a few times but the effects were very good. Overall, I enjoyed the film and was able to overlook many of the flaws because it was a great popcorn flick. 7 out of 10 stars