Star Trek II The Not So Wrath Of CumberKhan

Rating: 1/10 (7 May 2013)

The 2009 Star Trek film by J.J. Abrams was a mix of 80's films like Police Academy and Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. Gone was the intellect. Replaced by a Kirk played by Chris Pine who was ripped from Steve Guttenberg's Officer Mahoney of the Police Academy movies. A Zach Quinto Spock that seemed like a comical parody of the original one of the most miscast casts ever in film. Abrams' Trek crew wasn't smart enough to pilot a canoe but they were all thrown into his version of the Enterprise, so we could have some fun teen hi-jinks in Star Trek meets American Pie. Unfortunately the dumbed down Porky's Trek made some money. So we get a sequel; 'Star Trek Into Darkness'. This film's buildup has been totally centered around the I.D. of the villain. Of course that secret may or may not be a secret but finding that out adds no enjoyment here. And the big reveal is that Abrams did indeed attempt to recreate Khan. This Khan is not the handsome, deadly, strategist played so well by Ricardo Montalban. Instead he is a whimsical, crying, effeminate, boring Khan played oh not so well by Benedict Cumberbatch. So I'll call him...CumberKhan. And he's not a strategist of any kind. In fact he wouldn't even make a good terrorist in the real world but in Abrams dumb world of Mahoney- Kirk, he is quite deadly. CumberKhan wants to attack Starfleet command. His genius and diabolical plan: Mass shooting! Yeah. That's right. A big Sci Fi, big movie villain is reduced to being a mass-shooter. And so he goes all mass shooter and shoots up a command meeting. His mass shooting is cut short by Mahoney-Kirk and CumberKhan escapes. But not before CumberKhan's mass shooting fatally wounds Mahoney-Kirk's mentor Admiral Pike, thus creating some vague implication of a rivalry between them. So Mahoney-Kirk and the rest of the miscast Trek parody crew take off looking for CumberKhan. Once they find and capture him, they find a gentle, crying and motherly CumberKhan. CumberKhan is only doing bad things because Starfleet's Admiral Marcus, played by Peter Weller, has his crew from 300 years ago captive in their cryogenic pods. And CumberKhan wants them back. So CumberKhan isn't a villain really. He's more like the poor misunderstood Abominable Snowman in the old classic Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. He's just a misfit. Admiral Marcus is the real villain who had CumberKhan's crew loaded into torpedoes onto the Enterprise with a 'do not open' order with instructions to use them to kill CumberKhan.
Once that's settled, Marcus shows up in the USS Vengeance. He wants CumberKhan, Mahoney-Kirk wants to keep Cumber-Khan and go to Earth to rat out Marcus so we get a big battle. Both ships are damaged. Mahoney- Kirk and CumberKhan literally jump from the Enterprise to the USS Vengeance, Marcus gets killed and CumberKhan decides to betray Mahoney- Kirk and turns the USS Vengeance on the Enterprise and demands his crew be returned. We get another brief battle that leaves the Enterprise damaged. USS Vengeance crashes to the Earth and San Francisco, CumberKhan of course survives and runs off into the city.
We get a bizarre Abrams Police Academy style version of Trek II's classic death of Spock scene, Only this time it's Mahoney-Kirk who dies while Parody-Spock watches. And this time none of it matters as it did in Trek II since these characters do not matter. Mahoney-Kirk's death is shortlived,(LOL!)when he's resurrected after Dr. Parody-McCoy takes some of CumberKhan's blood and injects it into a dead tribble. I guess injecting dead tribbles with liquids is fun in the 23rd century. Then when Parody-McCoy sees CumberKhan's blood can revive the dead, he has Parody-Spock chase down CumberKhan, get some more blood and voila; Mahoney-Kirk is back. By the way this is the same he's dead now he's alive Hollywood stunt usually reserved for the end of bad movies or TV shows to inject some form of impact and meaning when the actual ending has none. It's an old Hollywood trick developed and used in TV and films like Gilligan's Island and Short Circuit. And the trick is once again deployed here by the overrated Abrams to make people think they saw something relevant. Actually it was done better on Gilligan's Island. The Skipper, Professor, the Howell's, Ginger and Mary Ann standing and mourning the Skipper's apparently dead 'Little Buddy' when he falls out of a tree and lands on the Skipper's head. Hmm. Maybe if Kirk had fallen out of a tree on...nah. Wouldn't work because who cares about Abrams and Chris Pine's Mahoney-Kirk.
I suppose this film was called 'Into Darkness' because of Mahoney-Kirk's brief death. Whatever the reason, this film further signifies the end of the true thought invoking and socially relevant Star Trek.