A good start

Rating: 7/10 (10 May 2009)

Star Trek is an all around entertaining action film that can appeal to Trekkers and non-Trekkers alike. With new ship designs and state-of-the-art effects, Abrams delivers a totally different Star Trek universe. The inside of the ships bear little to no resemblance to the original series, and the planet Earth looks radically different from the original movies. Not that I'm complaining.
**Major plot spoilers** In the 24th century, a sun is about to go supernova which threatens the galaxy, although I don't know how one sun going supernova would be such a grave threat. Leonard Nimoy's Spock attempts to prevent it but he is too late. The planet Romulus is destroyed. Spock launches something called "Red Matter" into the sun, creating a black hole, which sucks his ship and the Romulan miner Nero's ship in. Nero is sent back to the 23rd century, and Spock arrives 25 years later. Nero unwittingly kills Captain Kirk's father, seriously altering his life. When Nero finds Nimoy's Spock, he exiles him on a Vulcan moon that is a barren ice planet similar to Hoth from the Empire Strikes Back. Basically the first twenty-five minutes of the film establishes Kirk and Spock's lives before starfleet, after which it kicks into high gear. Nero plans to avenge the destruction of Romulus by using a material called Red Matter to create black holes in the cores of the Planet Vulcan and Earth. This raises an obvious question: how could Nero go through a black hole and survive if black holes destroy entire planets? We simply have to say "It's a movie." Kirk and the company have to stop Nero before he can destroy Earth.**End Spoilers**
The plot is a little simplistic and leaves a bit to be desired, what with the plot holes and all. The film's main strength is the cast. Star Trek accomplishes the most important goal when it comes to rebooting popular franchises: creating new versions of old characters that are just as likable. Chris Pine is very entertaining as Captain Kirk. He wisely chose not to imitate William Shatner, yet he has the characteristics of Kirk down pat. Zachary Quinto plays a sympathetic, tortured Spock who struggles with his emotion more than Nimoy's Spock ever did. Spock and Kirk have an intense rivalry that drives the film and provides most of the entertainment. Karl Urban does an impeccable (and very funny) imitation of DeForest Kelley. Uhura was never really developed well so Zoey had an easy task ahead of her. Her relationship with Spock comes as a bit of a surprise, there was not much development or preparation for it. Simon Pegg is very funny as Scotty. John Cho is not given much to do as Sulu. Leonard Nimoy's appearance is welcome and turned out to be longer than I thought. The only crew member I did not like was Chekov; his accent was too thick. The most disappointing character turns out to be Nero. His character is just not that interesting. At least we don't have to see him again in the sequels. All in all, I look forward to seeing this cast in the future.
Hopefully future sequels will have stories that feel more like Star Trek stories rather than Sci-fi action movies with the Star Trek name on it.