The cast excels in their roles! Fun flick with tight action sequences.

Rating: 9/10 (15 May 2009)

I just saw this flick today, after anticipating it for 2 years, ever since it was announced. I grew up in The Next Generation, but still have a kind fondness for The Original Series. I think The Wrath of Khan is the best movie and Deep Space Nine the best of the TV series.
I liked JJ's Star Trek a lot. I really do mean a lot. I wasn't blown away by it like I was blown away by the Dark Knight last summer. I would give Star Trek an 8.5 out of 10. For comparison I would give The Wrath of Khan a 9.0 out of 10 and The Final Frontier (Star Trek 5) a 5.0 out of 10. Overall the movie was about as much as a fan could hope for in essentially what amounts to a reboot of the entire mythos, from the era of Kirk onward.
The entire cast of the Enterprise are perfect for their roles. I couldn't be more pleased with Quinto as Spock, Saldana as Uhura, Cho as Sulu, Pegg as Scotty, and Yelchin (in a surprisingly funny turn) as Pavel Chekhov. I reserve special commendation for Karl Urban as Leonard "Bones" McCoy and Chris Pine as James Kirk. Both of these men NAILED their roles and were an inspiration, both for very different reasons. First off, Karl Urban's essentially channels the late-great Deforest Kelley, the original Doctor McCoy, with great skill! His mannerisms and speech, while not a complete imitation of the original McCoy, immediately "sells" the performance. and the man who had the biggest shoes to fill, Chris Pine, pulls off his performance for a very different reason. He makes the character of Kirk his own. It is a cockier, more aggressive Kirk than we've all grown up with. It is a character that we all know is an asshole, but love to see him win anyway. Pine's performance brings with it a self-assuredness and a wink and a smile that at once reminds us of Shatner's Kirk, while maintaining a fresh and new take on the character.
That's all i can say right now. I have to give it a day or two to fully germinate in my brain, what i just witnessed. I think i agree with one criticism I read over the Internet - that this film feels like a first act of a much larger arc. I agree with this, not in the sense that it's the first part of a multi-film story arc, but rather that it is a flick that neatly sets up the characters and Universe for additional adventures. The film leaves the audience wanting MORE. And that leads me to my biggest criticism about the storyline: the film would benefit GREATLY with another half hour of story thrown in there. The film needed breathing room. I wanted to inhabit this world up on the screen for a little while longer and explore it a bit more before we blow it all up. It's my hope that subsequent films flesh this Universe out more comprehensively. I want to see more more more. My biggest kudos for the storyline is one word: consequences. I have gotten too used to Star Trek TV shows where everything is reset at the end of the episode and then next week neither the crew nor the ship is worse for the wear. In this movie though there are consequences; DIRE consequences that are not reversed with a magical reset button.
For the next flick here's what I want to see:

Some truly "alien" environments.

Carol Marcus. She would be a great character to have. In the old time line she was the mother of Kirk's only son, David (Star Trek 2 and 3).

Klingons maybe? Not sure about this. In earlier movies there was a ton of back story from which to build possible future films, everything is so wide open now it's hard to decide where they should head next for the sequel! Perhaps Kang or Koloth, Klingon characters from TOS, could show up for Kirk's nemesis.

More alien life forms. - More scenes set on Earth, showing us how things have changed over the course of 2 and a half centuries.

PS: Bruce Greenwood was awesome as Captain Pike! The man has some gravitas in this flick. When this guy tells you to get your sh!t together, you listen!