No Ceti eel larvae?!

Rating: 6/10 (17 May 2013)

A disclaimer before I begin: I am not going to waste time during this review comparing "Star Trek Into Darkness" to 1982's "Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan", because aside from the fact that "Wrath of Khan" is a substantially better film, these are two different movies, with two differing story lines and vastly differing villains (even if they do share the same name). In fact, if you hadn't noticed from the 2009 lens flare riddled installment, director J.J. Abrams has chosen to take the Star Trek series down a different path, instead of re-treading like so many remakes tend to do. And while they may hold some similarities, "Into Darkness" should not be considered a remake of "Wrath of Khan", but more so a re-imagining. Hence, this review will not be a comparative one. I won't talk about the fact that there are few men who can match the flamboyant cartoonishness of Ricardo Montalban's Khan, and Benedict Cumberbatch isn't one of them. I won't talk about the interestingly restructured, but very family friendly cop-out ending which is tacked on to this installment. And I won't even mention how unlike William Shatner, Captain Kirk is likely to be the only watchable role actor Chris Pine will play during his hopefully short lived career. I won't talk about any of that. This will be a straight up critique of "Star Trek Into Darkness" based on its own merits. Now, onto my review: After an act of terrorism on earth, Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise must venture out into enemy territory to pursue a man, whom they suspect to be a rogue officer. But when they finally come face to face with him, he turns out to be a one man weapon of mass destruction. And his name happens to be Khan. If that means nothing to you, then stop reading now.
While J.J. Abrams' direction is as flashy as expected, his constant need to explore every off-the-wall camera angle possible doesn't really do anything to propel the movie into warp speed (see what I did there?). What does work, is the reprisal of Zachary Quinto's magnificently dry depiction of Spock, who, along with a lively supporting cast which includes, Simon Pegg as Scotty, John Cho as Sulu, Karl Urban as Bones, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, Zoe Saldana as Uhura and a surprisingly ultra-comedic script, are the only reasons as to why "Star Trek Into Darkness" is entertaining at all.
Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan: I am a huge Cumberbatch fan (just to get that out of the way) but his performance here honestly left me of cold. Let me rephrase that. The way Cumberbatch was utilized within the confines of this storyline was what left me cold. "Star Trek Into Darkness" contains one of the most underutilized villains in any science fiction film to date. During the first half of this movie, Khan is seen and described to be a superhuman-like being, who is touted to be nearly indestructible. But when Cumberbatch finally gets some heavy screen time, all Khan does is spend a few scenes speaking with a stern inflection and then a few more scenes punching people and getting punched, and then it's over. What a letdown.
Even though the comedic moments in "Star Trek Into Darkness" move this two hour plus movie forward, sadly this "action film" contains only a few action sequences (and by that, I mean two) which were memorable or made me lean forward in my seat. And therein lies the main issue at hand. I don't want to say that anything visually about this film was poorly constructed, because it wasn't. This is also not a Michael Bay movie which contains an annoying overload of explosions. All of the action sequences here have their respective place. There are even moments (during the last hour) when Abrams creates an atmosphere of suspense, which promises potential, but (even with its highly eventful score) soon recedes into another bland or simply shrug inducing action sequence. I guess what I'm trying to say is, not much in "Star Trek Into Darkness" was all that impressive. And I am including the final battle sequence in that discussion.
Final Thought: "Star Trek Into Darkness" is the type of movie which lives and dies on its audience's expectations. While "Into Darkness" is big budget, looks nice and is all and all a fine movie, the fact that it never became as engaging as I (along with a room full of men wearing Spock ears) expected it to be, is a problem. So, even though this is not a Sci-Fi film which will be scoffed at during upcoming episodes of "The Big Bang Theory", if you aren't a Star Trek fan, "Star Trek Into Darkness" isn't the movie that will convert you. In fact, for you the weighted melodrama within this film, may become far too irritating to stand after a while. And if you are a Trekkie, then chances are you've stopped reading a while back, upon noticing that this wasn't a five star review. In short, if you're a fan of Star Trek, then you're going to see "Star Trek Into Darkness" regardless of what I have to say.
Written by Markus Robinson, Edited by Nicole I. Ashland
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