Star Trek, Just safe enough.

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2013)

Looked forward to this with reservations about the whole Dark Knight style they were pushing in the adverts. I have to say that it strayed away from what I expected and pleasantly surprised me in most ways.
There are however a few pitfalls, the first being the whole light bad guy twist. Oh you think this guy is the bad guy, think again it's this guy, no wait you were right he is actually worse than the other bad guy, bad guy. It's a technique overly used in cinema and literature these days in a vague attempt to give you a shock or even just make the story slightly more interesting but I think it's time to put it bed.
The second part follows on from this original plot point. Khan is pretty much the most remembered baddie from Star Trek, he's hyper intelligent, strong and more than a match for any member of star fleet, especially Kirk and co. Why didn't they just run with this? Instead you have Robocop playing the minor/major baddie which ever way you look at it and Khan has a back seat ride from just after the beginning right up 'til towards the end. They had to change the story obviously because it's a different universe, but come on.
New Spock did the Khan? Couldn't they have left this out? I cringed when it happened, perhaps they could have left it for another movie with Khan in as they are obviously going to re-use him at some point. Yawn.
I liked the movie don't get me wrong. Would I pay to see it knowing what I do now? Probably, there isn't much else out at the moment. For the general audience I feel this is a safe movie, nothing majorly shocking happens, minor shocks, yes but nothing Earth shattering, I never felt like the Earth or any major characters were in danger like the first reboot when they blew up the Vulcan home world and annihilated a host of star ships in the first thirty minutes. Now that was a spectacle, hard to replicate yes, yet I feel that we deserved something more from this movie.
A safe play with recognisable characters, I think they should have taken a risk like the first movie. Alternate universe, let's get messy!