I guess they actually had quite a challenge, with all the franchise history, to go back and tell the pre-story, esp. against the backdrop of all of the technological changes that have come about since 1966. I would have gone with some serious high end set designers to get the perfect combination of 60’s technicolor style against the 21st century audience expectation, and kept the CG shit to a minimal. But that’s not what summer blockbusters are made of. The only time they get seriously wrong is during a gratuitous monster scene. Common with the absurd over the top CG monsters already! We can’t be scared by a large monster…it has to be a crazy large monster, with red reptilian skin in a snow environment no less? Not buying it! The casting was OK, other than Simon Peg being too heavy a pick for comic relief, and the Chekov guy a total miss. Also, negative points for absurd, anachronistic use of a Beastie Boys song.
But the script is OK, and wisely hides behind “alternate timelines” to clear up some would be slop. Not sure why the new and old version of a character have to meet one another, but I guess that’s throwing a bone to the trekkies. But since you went with the PG 13 rating would it not be OK to have some boobs in there? Yeah I know, there are kids in the audience, but if you consider most every film between 1978-1983 had at least a few seconds of boobs and we turned out OK, what’s the problem? After all, those rogue Romulan miners might be the deciding factor in some of the kiddies making unfortunate decisions to get facial tattoos. Boobs never hurt anybody, and I’d argue the real James T. Kirk would approve.
In the end, do they manage to bring the franchise into the 21st century like Batman and James Bond? Yeah I guess, but without the “darkness”, and I rather like the darkness.