Not really what I want from a Star Trek film

Rating: 5/10 (1 July 2013)

I saw this in 2D (my son saw it in 3D a few days earlier and said it gave him a headache with all the fast action and pans). I'm not impressed, mainly with the script. The acting is OK - Cumberbatch excellent as expected, Chris Pine and Karl Urban stand out among crew; I still don't think Zachary Quinto is the right guy for his iconic role. Production values are superb - but the story is weak, forced and full of plot holes I'll not itemise, save that the federation's transporters seems to work (or not work) less on physical principles than on script requirements. The worst thing from my POV was how much of the story depended on pure action, starting with the Bond/Indy-like intro sequence and ending with the ground/air chase on Earth. Gone are the days when Star Trek stood for a type of SF that had intellectual (I use that in a very broad sense, but there it is) appeal. And the Carol Marcus character was underused to a criminal degree, they would not have let that happen in the Original Series.
In some review there was mentioned how this film with its potentially sombre tones came a little to early for the yet young crew of the Enterprise, and I tend to agree. A more light-hearted, and maybe more interesting, adventure, with less explosion-action, more inter-action and a straightforward story might have been the better choice.