Superb/superior follow-up to a very good reboot!

Rating: 10/10 (20 April 2014)

I am a monumental fan of Star Trek:TOS, truly one of the most original (no pun intended!) series of all time. But I generally disliked all of the "sequel" series that came in the 80s and 90s. None of them engaged me the way TOS did. I can STILL watch the 60s series episodes and be firmly engaged, but you'd have to PAY me to re-watch TNG, DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise! All of them are in their own ways kind of clunky and generic copies of what TOS stood for (although DS9 came the closest to getting it right). And don't EVEN get me started on those atrocious TNG movies, which were just tepid extensions of that overrated, tepid series! I'm a Kirk/Spock/McCoy guy, not a Picard/Data/Sisko/Janeway guy.
So when the 2009 Star Trek reboot happened with all my favorite characters, I was highly anticipating it, and overall, I very much liked that movie. That said, I understood the detractors and hardcore Trekkies who felt that it wasn't quite "Star Trek". The film, while very fast-paced, exciting, and fun, definitely lacked the deep characterizations from TOS, even though it contained all of the original characters. But where I give that film a pass is that it shows the characters when they were MUCH younger, inexperienced, and just Starfleet cadets, so it made sense that they didn't have the depth of the originals. But I definitely concur that the immediate sequel HAD to up the ante and be deeper, and did it ever!
I am glad to say that STAR TREK:INTO DARKNESS (2013) tops it's very good 2009 predecessor by leaps and bounds and one can actually now see these still-young characters will become the deep characters from TOS. I dare say that this film is easily the second best Star Trek film of all time, with "Wrath of Khan" of course being top dog (an incredible irony)! My very first kudos must go to Chris Pine's portrayal as Captain James T. Kirk. I personally think that Pine was the true acting standout in this highly engrossing film. While in the first film, Pine's Kirk was a raging, hormonal hellion cadet, in this one, Kirk is actually given layers as the very young Captain of the Starship Enterprise, and we can literally see Kirk evolve throughout the course of the film both personally and professionally. While the first film was almost more of an ensemble, in this one, I felt that Kirk was the star, with everyone else supporting. Back from the first film are the other famous original series characters played by the same actors: Zachary Quinto (as Spock), Karl Urban (as McCoy), Zoe Saldana (as Uhura), John Cho (as Sulu), Anton Yelchin (as Chekov), and in particular Simon Pegg (as Scotty) all fit well into their respective roles and continue to be impressive.
The plot of STID starts with a mysterious figure named John Harrison (played with unapologetic coldness by Benedict Cumberbatch) blackmailing a London Starfleet operative into bombing the secret Section 31 facility in exchange for Harrison giving the man the cure that will save his cancer-stricken daughter's life. After the bombing, the head of Starfleet, Admiral Marcus (excellently played by veteran Peter Weller in an overdue welcome back!) convenes all of Starfleets Captains and First Officers into an emergency meeting and reveals that Harrison, a genetically engineered man with high intellect and superhuman strength, was an agent of Section 31, whose purpose was to develop advanced weaponry in anticipation of future conflicts. But then Harrison went rogue. During the meeting, Kirk (recently demoted to First Officer after violating the Prime Directive at the film's outset) tells the re-instated Enterprise leader Admiral Pike (wonderfully reprised by veteran actor Bruce Greenwood) as well as the rest of the convened that he thinks Harrison has set them up, which comes to fruition as Harrison attacks the meeting, and in the process kills Admiral Pike.
Admiral Marcus re-instates Kirk as Enterprise Captain and tasks him on an off-the-books mission to pursue Harrison across the neutral zone into an unpopulated location on the Klingon homeworld Kronos where Harrison is hiding out. As part of Kirk's unofficial orders, he is to use 72 torpedoes on Harrison to take him out. For this special mission, The Enterprise also takes on another science officer, the Admiral's daughter Dr. Carol Marcus (winningly played by the sexy Alice Eve), who is a weapons specialist in charge of maintaining and surveying the torpedoes. Long-time Trekkies know exactly who Carol Marcus is destined to be as she and Kirk have instant chemistry!
With some goading by Spock, a bloodthirsty and vengeful Kirk opts to spare Harrison and bring him back to face trial for his murderous actions. While prisoner on board the Enterprise, Harrison reveals a couple of major secrets to Kirk: that Admiral Marcus has ulterior motives and of Harrison's true identity, both of which set the stage for an exciting second half! Although this sequel has it's share of exciting action, courtesy of maverick J.J. Abrams, much like the first film, it is all accentuated by deeper, richer characterization and interactions between the principals, especially Pine and Cumberbatch, who play well off each other. While Cumberbatch plays the primary bad guy with relish, Weller makes for a great secondary villain. Younger audiences might not know this, but Weller actually used to play mostly villainous roles in the early 80s in his pre-Robocop days! There are also several wonderful scenes between Pine and Quinto, foreshadowing the complicated and legendary Kirk-Spock friendship from TOS.
And although the characterization is key, the film really boasts some eye-popping special effects and several exciting action sequences, including the thrilling underwater sequence that jumpstarts the film, an invigorating space-jump sequence at past the halfway point, and both a dizzying gravity-defying sequence and a pulse-pounding mano-y-mano fight in the climax. Even more so than the first film, this superior sequel makes me yearn for even more Trek!