Star Trek Into Darkness Review- some very mild spoilers

Rating: 8/10 (12 May 2013)

STID (not quite as contagious as it sounds) has often thus far been reviewed in comparison to its predecessor, the admittedly brilliant Star Trek of 2009. This is frequently seen as a trap, so I'm going to try, initially at least to review the movie on its own merits. Here goes.
Into darkness opens with a Star Trek equivalent of a Bond movie opening sequence on the beautiful planet Nbiru, grabbing the viewer by the eyeballs as we're forced into watching two separate blistering action sequences involving deep sea diving, an erupting volcano and raiders style alien natives with spears in a crimson forest. It's stunningly beautiful, and the most colourful the film gets for the rest of its considerable running time. It also sets an integral theme for the rest of the movie: Despite the slightly nonsensical plot- quite what Kirk and McCoy were doing in the temple in the first place is never explained- there's enough action and beautiful shots to make you try and forget the need for a plot in the first place.
This seems to fade into the background with the start of the movie proper- Abram's' ultra modern London, and the wonderfully tragic background story to an explosive break in at a London Starfleet Archive feel almost like another movie. Kirk's comical side is slightly muted in the face of office politics and an FBI- style briefing on Cumberbatch's character- still at this point in the shadows- until Harrison starts coming out into the open and blowing things up, whilst glaring malevolently the whole time. It's once John Harrison comes onto the stage that the film starts taking off- limited only by the fact that he isn't in it enough. You find yourself rooting for him, more than the Enterprise's crew, who for the most part, with the exception of Kirk and Spock, fade into the background.
Kirk's swift off the books chase of Harrison into deep space is fun enough; although increasingly murky due to plot details too spoilerific to go into here. But again, despite the welcome reappearance of familiar enemies on the starboard bow, it's only with Cumberbatch that the film becomes really engaging. His character is constantly evolving, from Sherlock- esque mind games to unfettered brutality in his fight scenes. You find yourself constantly guessing as to which side he's on- but when you ultimately do, well decide for yourselves.
In comparison to its precursor, Into Darkness doesn't pull off the slick ride of Star Trek. Neither in story cohesiveness, nor in terms of originality. To its credit, the action scenes are up to the standards of its predecessor, and sufficiently engaging to dispel any growing pedantry over the plot. In fact, it's only really in terms of the story of the film that it falls down. Not in terms of the dialogue, which remains snappy as ever, especially with Scotty, whose depiction by Simon Pegg gets the chance to actually become a serious and integral character, as well as very, very funny. But the plot seems to mutate over the course of the film from an original and engaging adventure to merely a very good remake of a story which was already pretty good to begin with. It's not the execution that bothers me, although one plot line involving a radiation chamber and a tribble could have been done better, but rather that one of the high selling points of Star Trek in 2009 was the promise of originality. The genius of rebooting the franchise in its entirety gave the promise of new, original material. The promise of discovering new worlds and civilisations finally meant something. This makes Into Darkness' decision to turn its climax into a new and perhaps unnecessary twist of a classic Star Trek story ever so slightly disappointing.
Verdict: If the above rant hasn't put you off, it's definitely worth a look. There are too many plot twists, some better than others for me to go into too much detail here, so it's worth seeing the film for yourself and forming your own opinion. There's a lot of good stuff here, and the film manages to make even a darkly lit hangar look beautiful. It's just Abrams' decision to try and pay homage to a bygone age which has not quite worked as smoothly as last time round. As the title suggests, the Star Trek franchise is flying into slightly murky territory, but it's still one hell of a ride.