Okay, deep details. I like Chris Pine. In fact, my two favorite performances by him are in Bottle Shock and Unstoppable. However, I just didn't buy him as being James T. Kirk. He just didn't give any common details to the character that said, "This is James T. Kirk. His history was affected, but its still him."
Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I didn't NuKirk simply because he was just a pompous a**hole. You could argue that classic Kirk wasn't really an angel himself, but he had genuine moments that reassured you he was a real good guy. I don't get that at all with NuKirk. I mean, the guy quotes star fleet regulations on how Spock left him on that ice planet yet he himself probably broke a dozen regulations when he berated his superior officer, disobeyed direct orders and, not this is pretty big, assaulted two on-duty security officers. And he's complaining that Spock left him on a planet?
The same with Uhura. I'm sorry, Zoe Saldana may be a good actress, but she didn't give off anything that reminded me of Uhura either. She comes off as being more of Uhura's sassy sister who didn't go to Starfleet and just wants to jump on a Vulcan.
Oooo. I've written so much about NuUhura on why she bothers me. So freaking much. It doesn't even have anything to do with the actress either. It's about how the writers are so delusional in the idea that they think Uhura is actually important. She's not. She's assigned to a station that is really not needed (TNG, DS9 and VOY gave communication duties to tactical officers), her one contribution is done off screen and only referenced during a scene where she's taking her clothes off (And defend that by saying Kirk was in his underwear either. He didn't have any close up shots), and the movie spends so much time developing how good she is with languages, yet when it comes time for it to pay off, the aliens speak perfect english. And to add the cherry on top, Chekov does the actual hailing! She's useless!
I got into an argument with Bob Orci over at trekmovie.com a while back when I made the point that Uhura's klingon transmission discovery didn't end up helping things at all. The Enterprise still arrived at Vulcan the way it was supposed to, and didn't come under attack by the Narada for a whole minute. I seriously doubt going to red alert and raising shields would take longer than that. As for the debris destroying the Enterprise? Not buying it. The way the Enterprise was getting damaged looked like the shields weren't doing a thing. If those were in fact the shields working during that scene, than hull must have the strength of butter.