I believe that IPC::System::Simple is exactly what you're after. It provides a function called capture() that works just like backticks in how you'd call it, but never invokes the shell when called with multiple arguments.

It has the advantages of running on both Unix and Windows, provides an easy way to get access to the exit value without manually unpacking $?, throws nice error strings on failure, is pure perl, and has no dependencies.

Under Windows it has the added advantage of providing access to the full 32-bit return value, and avoids the bugs in Perl's core which can result in the shell being invoked anyway or potentially running the command twice.

Note: I have some personal bias, as I'm the author of the module. ;)

All the best,