Good, but not as good as the the first

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2013)

This is a good movie, but only because the cast have so faithfully recreated the appealing characters of the original cast. The rest of the actors also do quite well. But it gets caught up occasionally in a secondary plot and a political message and loses its focus.
I also had what I like to call a "Titanic" moment. I know a lot of people loved that movie, but when I saw the leads dancing around in the freezing Atlantic waters which apparently had been warmed to bath temperature by flooding into the ship, any suspension of disbelief I'd had came crashing down. And that was a real event! This wasn't quite as bad, and I won't mention the STID moment that hit me like that to spoil it for anyone who reads this, but it was rather large. The science in ST is always a little fantastic, but this was sophomoric. Hint: it has to do with gravity.
Also, there should be someone with a ruler ready to whack JJ on the head for the next movie and say "You did that in the last one!" I also missed the slightly skewed ego maniacal strut that another actor once gave a certain bad guy. Speaking of which... Any movie only needs one of those, not two.
I don't want to complain too much because all in all, the movie is enjoyable. I'm not sorry I spent the money, and will definitely watch it again when it hits Blu-ray.
With every movie I see, I always listen to the crowd leaving the theater to see how much they enjoyed it. They were buzzing in delight after the first one, not this one. The cast lifted this one a full two points in my opinion.