If you liked the last Star Trek movie, an alternate Trek universe as imagined by Lost creator JJ Abrams, but the uneven reviews of the new movie have you wondering if you should give the newest movie a pass, I would say, Go. See it. You’ll have a good time. I did. I didn’t think it was as much fun as the first movie, but then it is titled Star Trek Into Darkness, so if you were to come out of it with the feeling that it was darker than it had to be, I’d really have no other choice than to ask you why you weren’t expecting that.

I had one hell of a lot of fun watching Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban and Simon Pegg get into their characters. The only thing I’d seen Chris Pine in before was a crappy B-movie about making wine in California. It was so bad that I didn’t hold out much hope he would be able to take on the anchor role of Kirk in the newly-rebooted Trek franchise, but now that I’ve seen him do it twice I’m thinking he brings just the right amount of devil-may care to the role. If nothing else, his willingness to get into fistfights makes him an excellent Kirk, a starship captain known for his roundhouse punches almost as much as for his way with the ladies.

Zachary Quinto I can’t say enough about. I literally couldn’t wait to hate his portrayal as Spock when I heard he was picked for the role, telling everybody who would listen what a huge mistake it was to cast him, and all because of the execrable character he played on the television series Heroes. I have no choice but to eat my words now. He’s more than lived up to the role: he’s inhabited it completely, making it his own, a job that would be tough enough with only Trek fans watching. To do it so well with Leonard Nimoy standing over him (literally!) the whole time has got to be more daunting than I could ever imagine.

If ever there was an actor born to play a role, Karl Urban as Leonard McCoy may be a textbook example. He growls his lines in a way that would have made DeForest Kelly proud.

And then there’s Simon Pegg. He had about ten minutes of screen time in Star Trek and it felt like he was there just for comic relief; he didn’t do much other than deliver a few punchlines. There’s a lot more Scotty going on in the latest movie, though, and he’s a firecracker this time around. The chief engineer as played by James Doohan seemed reserved even when he was shouting his signature line, “She cannae take namore, Captain!” Pegg’s nearly-manic Scotty is nowhere near reserved. I loved the scene where Pegg and Pine are racing down a corridor filled with flames and smoke to the engine room to save the Enterprise, giving Scotty yet another chance to smack down Kirk for the way the captain treats the engineer’s dearly beloved ship. “I’m off this ship for one day, just one bloody day, and look!”

I’m hugely disappointed that Zoe Saldana didn’t get a bigger part in this latest movie; Uhura was a much fuller character in the first movie than she ever was before and I’d hoped they’d find a chance to keep building her up. Ditto for John Cho as Sulu. And Anton Yelchin’s appearance as Checkov was reduced to little more than a cameo in the newest film. Honestly, I never cared much for Chekov, but if they’re going to keep him as one of the iconic members of the crew, which he is, then they should do something with him.

The rest I can’t even start to talk about without giving everything away. I’m sure somebody has done that already, but I don’t want to be that guy.

So I have nothing else to say about it, except for picking a few nits that won’t spoil anything.

For instance.

The falling Enterprise scene bugs me. Honestly, how does anybody still think that spaceships fall out of the sky when their engines aren’t blasting away to hold them up 100% of the time? I know jack-all about orbital mechanics, but even I know that doesn’t happen. It’s like imagining that your car will fall off a bridge if the engine suddenly stops working. I mean, you could fall off the bridge, but it wouldn’t be because your engine stops working.

And then there’s the Klingons. The baddest aliens in the galaxy. In their big scene, they fast-rope from the bomb bays of their troop ships by the dozen to capture or kill (I’m betting they were going for “kill”) our guys from the Enterprise. But wait! A super-solder appears from the sidelines carrying a rifle big as a telephone pole that he uses to blast Klingon warbirds from the sky! When Klingons surround him and get close enough to slice and dice him into little bits with their curvy swords, he effortlessly repels them with kicks and punches that send them flying. It turns out Klingons are wussies! Even when there are dozens of Klingons! Wearing armor! One guy can take out ALL the Klingons, even when they can fly! Okay, no. You can’t tell me there’s an alternate universe where that makes sense.

Two nits is enough for now. When Star Trek Into Darkness comes out on DVD and I can watch it a couple more times while I fold laundry, I’m sure I can come up with some more.