K, so I went to see this...
Holy ****!
It's easily better than TPM and AOTC... I'd say it's as good as ROTS in a different kind of way. That, to me, puts it on-par with the worst (which is still awesome) of the original trilogy. As Star Trek goes, it's as good to me as TNG, and DS9 were, and I personally found it to be a much better movie than First Contact (it pains me to say it) and far better than Wrath of Kahn (I only ranked that film lower than FC because I prefer the newer crew over the old one).
The acting...
It was amazing I thought. I felt all the characters were portrayed marvelously. I would say the Spock character was overall the best, and Bones a very close second. Scotty and Chekov were a little less spotlighted, as was Sulu and Uhura, but all 4 were marvelous. The Kirk was not William Shatner, but instead it was what Kirk would've been had Shatner not been a worse actor I think. That's not really a knock on him, it's more a testament to the way the kid playing him was able to capture the womanizing, "*******" persona that was Kirk, but without the dramatic pausing and such. Shatner layed the groundwork and this kid refined it IMO.
Everything I heard about Bones was right... What a portrayal. He's probably the most true to his original character, but I rreally felt Spock was pulled off just as well or better. It's just hard to gauge being that he's not emotional and all.
The story...
It was really great to see a movie that the story was almost parallel to the character development. You got to know the crew, while at the same time the movie's plotline was setting you up for this reboot of the Star Trek franchise... It fit flawlessly. It didn't give you enemies you were distracted by or anything. They had a quick little story to who they are and why they act the way they do, but you didn't get bogged down in them... They weren't center stage, the Enterprise and her crew are.
There's a lot of little "this is why this is this way" type moments... I liked, as a ST fan in general, seeing these things. They tied it pretty well together, everything has a great solid explanation that I could figure, and so as a fan of the original stuff I didn't feel that the old TV show, subsequent movies, or subsequent TV series were "cheated" by this film at all. They all mesh well.
The Enterprise is made much more realistic I felt... It's not the same ship inside, but outside's very close. Inside's updated but still tried to keep that old feel to it too. I was impressed.
In general this is an A+ to me... I could watch it again easily too, so I may catch it in IMAX since we've got a screen here for that.
As a testament to the quality this is, my gf HATES Star Trek... If possible, moreso than anything else I've dragged her to see, or that I watch religiously (ST: TNG reruns, etc.), and she really, really liked this movie. It's got a lot of good, well-placed humor, it's got a lot of character depth, and it's got a **** TON of potential for sequals. They basically put down the foundation of a number of movies here with this one.
And Scotty's buddy kicks ass. How this guy didn't get a figure, I'll never know.