Derivative plot elements make the stars themselves enter darkness...

Rating: 1/10 (12 May 2013)

***WARNING: SPOILERS*** Please note that this review does contain spoilers.
I have been a fan of Star Trek since watching it as a child during the first run of the first season of The Original Series on Australian television (then in living black and white).
I was so bitterly disappointed in Star Trek Into Darkness.
My issue is the plot and writing.
The acting, direction, cinematography and SFX were all of very high standards, however...
However.
Kirk has the Enterprise taken off him, demoted then put back in the chair - I saw little point in that other than to address the concerns about the rapidity with which Kirk was promoted to Captain in the earlier film by JJ Abrams. It seemed to be a back-peddling contrivance, and a little too convenient to accept.
Later, when Benedict Cumberbatch reveals himself as being Khan I found myself bored. It was to me a non-event.
It is not Benedict Cumberbatch's performance - I actually think he made a 'superior' Khan to his predecessor (although I found his pallid, northern European appearance to be seriously at odds with Khan's ethnicity - genetic superman or not, he did not 'look' the part of a despot from the Indian subcontinent).
Rather, I felt that something was being rehashed. And it was. And Khan was not the only element being rehashed.
The worst part of all to me was the rehashing of Spock's death from ST II: The Wrath of Khan, then the rehashing of his resurrection from ST III: The Search for Spock. The twist of it being Kirk, not Spock, on the lethal side of the glass, as his hand goes up in a vain attempt to reach through and make contact with his pointy-eared friend did not in my view make this recycling excusable. Kirk's resurrection in Into Darkness was very different in mechanical terms to Spock's seen in ST III, but I felt it to be as big a cop-out as its earlier incarnation.
I have always felt that the resurrection of Spock in ST III was a shameful act of story-writing cowardice, and the fact that the same principle has been applied to resurrect Kirk (albeit in a different manner) is far worse this second time around, if only for its severe shortfall of imagination and originality.
The, worst of all, when Kirk knocked out Scotty and entered the high radiation area to save the ship from certain doom, I actually started groaning - with disgust. I very nearly violated my longstanding principle of never walking out on a film. I had hoped the story would redeem itself. It did not.
For those who never saw Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan nor Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, this fault will go unnoticed. If you have never seen ST II or ST III, then you have not seen the original source material from which so many important plot points have been plundered in order to make Star Trek Into Darkness.
To cap it off, with his friend Kirk now dead, Spock repeats Kirk's line from ST II, screaming out: "Khaaaaaaan!" That line was so cheesy the first time around it has been the source of many a parody. The tragedy here is that what appears to have been intended as an emotional punch is simply pitiful.
To me, Star Trek Into Darkness has taken the franchise into true darkness.
I don't think I'll be able to drag myself along to see the next installment.
And that saddens me.
It is as if the stars themselves have entered a darkness from which they may never return.