Fun Action Film, Bad Star Trek Film

Rating: 4/10 (6 December 2014)

With Star Trek Into Darkness, there is quite a divide between those who enjoy it for its entertainment value, and those who despise it for its abandonment of classic Star Trek principles. Honestly, I can relate to both camps. It simply comes down to what one values as a viewer, and it should not be difficult to understand those with opposing perspectives. That being said, when viewed as part of the Star Trek franchise, this film is very much a disappointment.
What Stark Trek Into Darkness has going for it is that it is an exciting, fast-paced, visually attractive action film with a great cast. It is easy to watch and beautiful to look at. One must admit that some of the Star Trek films of the past, whatever their virtues may have been, were extremely boring. That is no longer the case, and in and of itself, the engaging style of these new films is not a bad thing. The franchise needed to be refreshed, and made more accessible to general audiences. The problem with STID is that the story itself has been give the lowest of all priorities, and that is why it is not a good Star Trek film.
The opening sequence serves as a microcosm of the larger film. It is comprised of a series of narratively-nonsensical set-pieces that exist for no other reason than to look cool. And they do look cool, no argument there. But something like the Enterprise "hiding" underwater is just purely ludicrous. Yes, we get a fantastic visual of a starship rising from the ocean, but it makes not a lick of sense either within the science of the Star Trek universe, or within the story line at hand. Not every viewer will be bothered by such things, of course, but it should be simple enough to acknowledge the issue.
From there, the story unfolds more or less accordingly, with pseudoscientific (within Star Trek) plot twists holding together a narrative that is deeply conflicted. The conflict is between the good story idea that begins with Benedict Cumberbatch's character's introduction and ends with the same character's destruction. Somewhere within the murky husk of Star Trek Into Darkness is a good film about terrorism, militarization and the end of innocence. Unfortunately, the film's defining characteristic is its ill-advised homage to a set of classic scenes from another, much better Star Trek film that was made thirty years ago.
John Harrison is a good new character. The idea that he is actually Khan Noonien Singh does not make sense. It is completely contrived. However, the greater problem is the winking recycling of what is arguably the most iconic scene from the most iconic film in the franchise, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. From my subjective standpoint, it is offensively ill-conceived, not to mention poorly executed. A small moment in a long film, perhaps, but for this longtime Star Trek fan, an exceedingly hard pill to swallow.
Again, from the perspective of someone who is simply looking for an exciting space action film, none of that may matter. There have been Star Trek films that were bad films, period. This one is not a bad film; it is just a bad Star Trek film. This franchise, as other reviewers have noted, is supposed to be about thoughtful commentary on society (which requires a well-written story) and exploration of new frontiers (which requires a plot that is not focused on making nods to the past).
To suggest, as the front-page user review here in IMDb does, that one should "ignore the critics," is to over-simplify the situation here. By all means, do not let anyone else's subjective opinion dampen your enjoyment of something. But by the same token, try to understand that Star Trek is a deeply meaningful thing to many people, and that this film sacrifices much of its core attributes in order to be more accessible to the average viewer.
The tragedy is that there is no reason why a Star Trek film cannot be both thoughtful and exciting, well-written and visually stimulating. It simply takes the right people being involved in the production. I do not want another Star Trek Into Darkness, but neither do I want another Star Trek: Insurrection. There can be a balance, and hopefully in the future, there will be a film that finds it.