Star Trek: Into Darkness- Carries on the success of the first film

Rating: 10/10 (23 July 2016)

Although I was excited that there was another Star Trek film coming out, I was also nervous whether it would live up to the first one which I thought that it did. Everything in it was just as good as the first one had been- the cast still reminded me of the original characters, the story line was action packed and the special effects were still of the highest quality.
This film opens with Kirk disobeying Star Fleet's prime directive and so as a result he is demoted to Commander and First Officer to Christopher Pike who Kirk had taken over as Captain for the Enterprise in the first film. There are terrorist attacks committed by Benedict Cumberbatch's character. In an emergency meeting that Pike, Kirk and Spock attend they are attacked by Benedict's character and as a result he kills many Star Fleet officers including Captain Pike.
Admiral Marcus sends Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise to find him and kill him but it soon turns out that the Admiral has sinister reasons for wanting to kill Cumberbatch's character and for me, there was no shock when you learn the true identity of the terrorist is that he is indeed Khan and the crew have a balancing act of wondering about Khan's motives and Admiral Marcus's unstoppable barrage against the Enterprise. Khan is portrayed in a completely different way from Ricardo Montalban's version but again I think this works as it would have been totally unbelievable if Benedict had tried to do an impression of Ricardo. I think Benedict's Khan is a nice contrast to Ricardo's more fiery Khan.
We are also introduced to a character that had popped up in the original Fillm, Dr Carol Marcus. There are scenes where we can see the attraction between Carol and Kirk, although it is not shown on screen if they acted on those feelings. It would be interesting if they did follow this up in any future films as it was one of the plot lines I liked in The Wrath of Khan and the search for Spock when Kirk learns that he has an adult son and then loses him in the next film.
I was sad to see the end of the Christopher Pike character so near the start of the film as I enjoyed this character very much from the first film.
It was also fascinating to see them reenact the scene from the original film The Wrath of Khan where Spock sacrifices his life for his colleagues on the Enterprise that always had me in tears but I liked that they twisted it on it's head in this film having Kirk sacrifice himself for the Enterprise and Spock having to deal with his friend's death and his fight with Khan.
I also think the solution for Kirk's resurrection was very creative and worked well so I'm pleased to say that it carried on the success of the first film with this sequel.