"I like this ship! It’s exciting!"

Star Trek

Yeah, it’s movie-review time again.

As you’ve already heard from every other reviewer in the universe, the new “Star Trek” movie is pretty spectacularly awesome. I’m not a big enough Trekkie to have made the first showing (I’ve got a severe allergy to people who show up for movies wearing costumes), but my brother and I took a break from installing insulation Sunday afternoon to hit the theater. I’d been taking the early reviews with a grain of salt — I remember how wildly enthusiastic the “Star Wars” fans were when “Phantom Menace” hit the big screen — but I got won over very fast.

No spoiler here — all the action here takes place in an alternate universe from the standard “Star Trek” continuity, which gives the filmmakers the opportunity to reboot classic “Star Trek” into something new for the 21st century. And even better, they gave the whole thing to a guy with no connection to previous “Star Trek” movies — J.J. Abrams, a dude who is best known for producing and directing action movies and wildly complicated TV shows. As a result, you get a movie that, while very respectful of classic Trek’s history and performances, doesn’t feel duty-bound to precisely replicate them, especially when audiences would rather enjoy some brawling, some stuntwork, some thrills, and some shocks.

I was expecting the least from Chris Pine, the guy who was picked to play the new version of James Kirk, but he ended up being the best surprise — he doesn’t try to channel William Shatner, but he does bring the essence of Kirk — the brash, cocky, womanizing bad boy — to the screen. Zachary Quinto as Spock, Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, and especially Simon Pegg as the uncommonly funny Montgomery Scott are pretty much perfect, and everyone else is really close to perfect. Eric Bana’s genocidal Romulan Nero is an extraordinarily appealing character — party psycho, part charmer (I’m wildly in favor of his initial greeting to Captain Pike), and almost as good a villain as Ricardo Montalban’s Khan Noonien Singh or Christopher Plummer’s General Chang.

I’ve seen some complaints that it’s got too much action. I’d consider that a legitimate complaint if it was bad action or pointless action, but it’s not. It’s good action that serves the plot and doesn’t get in the way of character development. Yes, McCoy, Sulu, Scotty, and other characters don’t get as much screen time as Kirk, Spock, and Uhura — I certainly would’ve loved to see Pegg and Urban get some more time in front of the cameras. But this is an ensemble cast — there’s just no way to make sure all of them get equal time.

I think it’s a great movie, and a great way to reboot the series. I’m looking forward to the sequels.