Energetic

Rating: 8/10 (27 April 2014)

A lively and pounding second outing for the Young James T Kirk(Pine) taking the original's first sequel's seminal villain Khan(Cumberbatch) into new territory. Still as an enhanced human he sets about a one man war upon star fleet for putting his superhuman crew into remission. After violating the prime directive for saving Spock(Quinto) and revealing himself to a prewarp planet, Kirk is relieved of the Enterprise. This is a brief relief as when his mentor Pike is killed in an attack by Khan he is commissioned to undertake a mission to take out Khan on Kronos with specially prepared torpedoes. Spock, however, convinces Kirk to capture rather than kill Khan as the former would be immoral without a fair trial. It also seems that Admiral Marcus'(Weller) plans for Kirk and the torpedoes have more than meets the eye. As far as casting goes, Pine, for me, is really making Kirk his own but still giving the right amount of homage to Shatner. Quinto was always perfect for the younger Spock and although I'm not a big fan of Saldana she has breathed life into the otherwise sedate character that Uhrura once was. Pegg brings a nice amount of comic performance to Scotty and with Sulu Checkov it's a good team. Cumberbatch proves to be a natural to the bad guy role and brings a nice sinister air to the role. Abrams has given the franchise an excellent new lease of life. I believe some hardcore Trekkie's are unhappy with the storyline but for me it was a really good plot, not too complicated but with just the right amount of curves to keep it fresh. The effects are well put together and the film has something of an electric pace that would make The Motion Picture look as if it as in reverse. If Abrams can do this sort of thing with Episode 7 then hopefully Star Wars is not doomed by Disney.