PC moralising grates amongst the explosions

Rating: 4/10 (9 May 2013)

I had a real problem with the underlying political/social commentary running through this film.
War with the Klingons gets discussed, only for us to learn that they are being 'provoked' by a militaristic Starfleet Admiral who is arming the Federation to deal with potential threats. Say what? I understood the Klingons to be a warrior race, born and bred conquerors. The Federation better arm up or humanity will end up a vassal state of the Klingon Empire. A Pollyanna-esque "we can all get along if we are nice to each other" attitude doesn't cut it when facing the bat'leths.
Then there is the main 'bad guy' - a well-spoken, white Englishman. Notice how bad guys these days can't be aliens or 'ethnics' anymore? Apparently it demonizes the 'other' – read black people, refugees, Muslims, etc. Hence we get dark skinned Klingons being 'provoked' before trying to kill everyone in sight, and a nice, safe, white English toff bad guy we are 'allowed' to hate. The same was seen in Iron Man 3; Guy Pearce is the boo-hiss bad guy and an Osama Bin Laden knock-off turns out not to be bad (or ethnic) after all...
The message this film (and many like it) convey is that rich, white Western people are in fact the bad guys - and that it's our fault when the 'not really' bad guys kill us.
The action sequences were great but the PC ideology was just grating. I shudder to think of what revisionist PC tinkering J.J. Abrams will do to Star Wars...