Great Fun, Or Empty and Shallow? (Minor Spoilers)

Rating: 9/10 (19 May 2013)

First I would like to say I probably liked Star Trek Into Darkness more than J.J Abrams Star Trek. But people also seem to see a lot of negatives in this latest movie. Make no mistake, Into Darkness is a fun, energetic movie with a lot of call backs to previous continuity. All the actors do their job well and Cumberbatch absolutely kills it as "John Harrison".
Of all the secrets in the movie the John Harrison one was not a big secret. The Big secret in the movie is Peter Weller. He plays a much bigger role in the film and it was great. But this is where I think the film misses its mark. See, Star Trek at its heart has always been a smart piece that is able to make a point about the world we live in today. Or its able to make a statement about how we as society can be better.
With this though we only scratch the surface. Weller's character sees a war coming with the Klingon. And he aims to start it so he can stop it. Sadly this thread is only in service of the twist in the movie. It is as if the subplot was created just to make every turn in the movie happen. But if time was spent on making the Klingons more of a character, gave them more of a role than background noise I think the movie would have been better off and all that stuff with John Harrison could have been saved for a sequel, which we will probably end up revisiting anyway.
In the end, I think all the twist and left turns work, the movie is fun and fast pace and even the small amount of weight this movie acts like it wants to have works as it does not get to bogged down by what it wants to do. I do think if the story was told from the view point of the Admiral, Peter Weller's character it would have been a more interesting movie.