mindless fun, but should have been much better

Rating: 7/10 (13 September 2013)

While I enjoyed the original Star Trek series, I never had the enthusiasm for it required to really hate this movie. I don't have a problem with anything in the movie based on how it differs from the series, but I do have problems with this movie as a big dumb action flick.
First off, this is very much a blow-stuff-up movie. There is very little story and a bare minimum of character development. This is not a movie of ideas. The series took on various issues and explored mankind's place in the world, the movie hasn't a thought in its head.
As a dumb action picture, Darkness succeeds pretty well. It's got some exciting action. It also has moments of humor, along with failed moments of pathos.
But the movie can't be satisfied with being dumb, but instead insists on being aggressively stupid. For example, Kirk is repeatedly told he is too impetuous, trying crazy, dangerous things. All evidence is that this is true, yet the movie justifies every decision he makes, holding up impetuous recklessness as a higher calling. This is not untrue to the series - Kirk was always ludicrously perfect - but it's dumb.
The really dumb stuff turns up at the end. There's a scene that's supposed to be touching (and is apparently a replay of a scene from an older ST movie I barely remember), but it fails, both because the nature of the movie excludes true tragedy and because the character work needed to make the scene work is never done. This is soon followed up by a plot hole so huge and obvious that one has to conclude the writers and director knew it was there and just decided to ignore it, because, HEY LOOK OVER THERE! WE'RE BLOWING STUFF UP!
While not as bad as Abrams' Mission Impossible 3, a similarly dumb and explosive film, Darkness is still too CGI-obsessed to be really good. It's a disappointing follow-up to his first, better attempt at Star Trek, but considering its success, I expect Abrams will prove content to blow stuff up and let the money roll in.