Saturday, June 08, 2013

Star Trek Into Darkness

J.J. Abrams' first Star Trek movie may not have been an exercise in originality but it did what it set out to to do and gave a vital shot-in-the-arm that the franchise needed and laid down a new rebooted universe that will hopefully inpire a whole new generation of fans. Provided that us "old fogies" can appreciate that this was necessary and can just sit back and relax and enjoy what J.J. has brought us knowing that our "Prime Universe" Trek will always be ours, the world will turn all for the better.

2009's Star Trek rebooted the legend from day 1 and re-introduced us to Kirk, Spock, McCoy and friends as they grouped together for the first time. The movie established the changes in the universe as well as the fundamental changes in the characters themselves. With this foundation now set, Abrams could concentrate on delivering an actual story to proper Star Trek parameters with the sequel.

I'm please to say the result was exemplary. Star Trek Into Darkness is a triumph among so many failures of modern science-fiction movies, Prometheus, Oblivion, After Earth et al. Abrams managed to carve out something unique by cleverly using ideas and scenes from both the original Star Trek TV shows and the movies and melding them into a unique tale to thrill both fans and non-fans of Star Trek.


The entire cast of the first movie [sans. Nero and co.] return, now obviously more comfortable with their roles and are prepared to bring their own nuances to the characters made legendary by the original cast, especially Quinto, Pine and Saldana. The cast are joined by lovely Alice Men in Black III Eve, the incomparable Benedict Sherlock Cumberbatch and the legendary Peter RoboCop Weller as Admiral Marcus.

Into Darkness also corrects most of the issues I had with the original movie. First of all Simon Pegg jettisoned his absurd wackiness he brought on board the Enterprise in 2009 and made him a more mature Montgomery Scott, with a genius engineering intellect, high moral values but retained his comedic charm so all is well with that character now. Secondly, it's fair so say that the original movie was devoid of a cohesive plot and while there are more than a few issues with Into Darkness' plot, it's a phenomenal leap forward from Star Trek so that gets a thumbs up. The only real issue I can retain with Into Darkness, held over from Star Trek is Abrams' sometimes bizarre direction and some serious editing issues [I don't object to the visuals, but I do object to the lack of reasoning why Alice Eve appears in her skivvies for no apparent reason]. I just hope he get's his act together before he starts work on my religion.

Final Verdict: This reboot situation isn't everyone's cup of tea sure, but I think if you can leave that baggage at home and want to see an action-packed, visually stunning science fiction movie then you'll not go wrong with Star Trek Into Darkness.

Colonel Creedon Rating: *****+

1 comment:

Civilian Overseer said...

[I don't object to the visuals, but I do object to the lack of reasoning why Alice Eve appears in her skivvies for no apparent reason]

Col prehaps you are overthinking it. :)