Engage
Star Trek.
Okay, I'm going to say right off that this is a hard one for me to review. I spent my formative years watching TNG with a fervor borderlining on religious fanaticism. I consumed Trek. But then, I gave up on DS9 at about season 5, Voyager at about season 4, and the only episode of Enterprise I've seen all the way through was the pilot. I admittedly haven't seen much of TOS (mostly the classic eps), but what I have seen I've liked overall. Of the films, I liked 2, 4, and 6.
So anyway...
The good:
I thought the cast handled their roles well - everyone seemed to have a good grip on the roles they were filling, and I'm happy the script gave everyone a distinct set of character traits a chance to shine in the spotlight. (Unlike the last 4 films, where the credits basically went "Picard, Data, and those other guys who aren't important.")
This film, more than any other Trek film, looks downright gorgeous. It's definitely one to see on the big screen.
I'm happy they peppered the the script with shout-outs to the original series: the red-shirt dies, "I'm a doctor, not a...", Chekov's inability to pronounce Vs, the Kolinar, and the Next Gen retcon that Vulcan logic and stoicism is a philosophical path rather than a racial trait. Young Spock's bloody lip being green was an especially nice touch.
The Bad:
Not too thrilled with the Uhura/Spock pairing. Overdone and unnecessary. (And what of Pon Far?)
The other Vulcans (i.e., not Spock or Sarek)? Not so stoic and logical. It's like the actors tried too hard, and wound up sounding put-upon and annoyed all the time. (I also find the notion of "Vulcan bullies" to be unintentionally hillarious and I can't quite articulate why.)
Even overlooking why Vulcan's ambassador to Earth was on Vulcan - what was his very human wife doing with the Vulcan Elders? They spent enough time building up the race-traitor tension against both Sarek and Spock (which? another nice touch) that it seemed odd.
My big sticking point:
Blah blah blah alternative universe blah blah time travel blah... I get it. They wanted to kinda but not really start fresh. To not have to worry about continuity while not alienating the fans. Well, there's no easy way to say this, but: too bad. Trek comes with tons of established and implied backstory. You can either (1) honor that backstory, (2) attempt to retcon, or (3) ignore it and start fresh. This film never really took a hard line on what it wanted to be doing. To try to explain it in story was poorly executed, on top of poor form. It seemed in places to dance on the corpse of continuity with almost gleeful abandon.
I mean, take Kirk's father. To the best of my knowledge, we never met him or knew about from any source before this film. So to kill him, and then to highlight that Kirk grows up without knowing his father and that this is a retcon? Ehh... there's plenty of other "wrong" stuff to highlight. Such as...
One of the (granted, weird in retrospect) plot points from TOS is that no Federation ship had ever made visual communication with the Romulans - so it was a surprise to everyone (especially Spock) when it turned out that the Romulans were originally Vulcan exiles. Nero's ship doesn't look even vaguely Romulan by any standard. So how did anyone know what he was?
Also? THEY BLEW UP VULCAN. I mean, I don't know how to take that. An artistic choice to show that nothing was "off limits?" A "screw you" to those of us who liked the later stories that take place there? The worst possible thing the writers could think of to do to Spock? (Which, please, he's already survived being part of Star Trek V - whatever the bad guys or writers think up, he's been through much worse). There are plenty of other established core Federation planets that we know virtually nothing about (aka easy, non-continuity breaking targets) - there were I think a dozen worlds that founded the UFP (speaking of, can we please stop introducing new races and take some time to flesh out the old ones?). So naturally the only two named targets are Vulcan and Earth.
And all of that would be fine by me (well, maybe) if they didn't then throw "our" Spock into the mix as last-minute savior and explanation for Nero's rage and a hamfisted way to pass the torch or whatever. The UFP was founded after its founding member worlds successfully fought off an invasion by the Romulan Star Empire - so you don't need ROMULUS TO BE DESTROYED TOO (thus rendering any hopes of Reunification rather moot) to give a Romulan captain a reason to hold a grudge against the UFP in general, or Vulcan and Earth in particular. Nor does he need Vulcan tech to make black holes - black holes are HOW ROMULANS POWER THEIR SHIPS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
And stranding "our" Spock alive but in the past (after a really hamfisted scene with his young self)? Given his wealth of not-yet-discovered scientific knowledge, diplomatic knowledge AND tactical intelligence for the next 120 years? Section 31 would be on him in a heartbeat.
So overall... I dunno. I'm glad I saw it. I hope that there are sequels with this this cast and that we get to see the fallout of some of the events of this film in more detail. But I didn't leave the theater smiling* or thinking "Finally! Trek done RIGHT! On to the final frontier!" (which, given the attention they paid to the visuals, kind of is what I was hoping for). But, like I said, I grew up WITH Trek, so maybe I would have liked it better if I didn't realize all the places where they got things "wrong" for no good reason. So I guess I give it a B, maybe a B-.
* - to be fair, this was also true of some other films that I've grown to love, like Serenity.