004. Review - Star Trek Into Darkness

Paramount Pictures

I grew up with a passing familiarity with the Star Trek franchise; while I recognized Kirk, Spock, Picard, and even Khan, most of that knowledge was periphery pop culture trivia.  My real introduction to the Star Trek universe came through the 2009 reboot, heralded by science fiction’s golden child J.J. Abrams.  With an amazing cast, great action set pieces, and a real sense of wit and heart, the film was one of my favorites of the year.  So now we arrive at Star Trek Into Darkness, the next installment in the Abrams universe, with Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the Enterprise crew battling against the dread terrorist John Harrison, played by the dashing Benedict Cumberbatch.  I entered the theater excited and hopeful, but when the lights came up, I was leaving baffled, confused, and somewhat aggravated.  There were fun moments and some great Abrams action, but something about the whole affair felt off. For all its flashiness, Into Darkness is still a poor installment in the franchise, perhaps even disastrous.  More thoughts, with spoilers included, after the jump.

As far as the positive elements go, I do have to hand it to Abrams and the visual team on this film.  From Mission Impossible III to Super 8, few people in the business know how to stage an action sequence better than J.J. Abrams.  The opening of the film, with Kirk (Chris Pines) and McCoy (Karl Urban) running through a red-tinged alien planet with Spock (Zachary Quinto) desperately trying to halt its volcano from erupting, is visually pleasing and an exciting way to kick the movie off.  The “space jump” during the latter half plays closely to the warp scene in Star Trek 09, and yet there’s a different sense of wonder and tension that helps set it apart.  Put simply, if you’re looking for some fast-paced cool-looking summer popcorn action, you could do a lot worse that Star Trek Into Darkness. The film also has some great humor spots, most of them delivered by Simon Pegg as Chief Engineer Scotty; he was a welcome addition back in 2009, and here he injects both the quips and the slapstick laughs to great effect, making him one of the best parts of the movie. 

The rest of the Enterprise crew, from Zoe Saldana’s Uhura to John Cho’s Sulu to Anton Yelchin’s Chekov, do an admirable job with the time they’re given, but said time is woefully short; in the course of the film’s 132 minute runtime, Cho and Yelchin get perhaps fifteen minutes screen time total.  It’s unfortunate, to be honest, and the great chemistry that was felt in the previous installment feels somewhat fractured this go around.  Instead, we focus the majority of our time on Pines, Quinto, and yes, our man Benedict Cumberbatch.  Currently the reigning champion of “Greatest Name in Show Business”, Cumberbatch delivers an appropriately menacing performance as terrorist “John Harrison”.  He growls his way through his monologues, smashes his way through the action sequences, and on the whole commands the screen whenever he appears.  As this superpowered terrorist he proves to be more than a match for the Enterprise, although it’s ultimately at the “reveal” of his true identity that the film starts to fall apart and its seams start to show. Spoilers incoming…

J.J. Abrams is renowned for his secret-keeping ways, his trademark “mystery box” tactic, but it utterly fails in regards to Star Trek Into Darkness.  The fact that “John Harrison” is actually Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh is arguably one of the least surprising surprises of the year, a twist only in the sense that Paramount would never outright confirm what many had known the entire time.  Once the reveal goes down, Into Darkness essentially spends the rest of its time saying “Look everyone, Khan!”, including mirroring the Kirk/Spock death scene and the infamous “KHAAAAAN” scream from the original 1982 film.  It actually goes so far as to bring back Leonard Nimoy as Old Spock solely for the purpose of saying “Remember Wrath of Khan?”  A lot of the Kirk/Spock/Khan dynamic in the first iteration was built on previous conflict, but none of that exists in the 2013 version.  It throws Tribbles and Klingons and Khan at us, shouting “Remember this? Remember this?” without giving any concrete reasoning behind why these things should be in the film outside of the nostalgia factor.  In fact, writer team Kurtzman and Orci, alongside Damon Lindelof, seem so enamored with the past that they even repeat plot points from the previous installment.  After the solid opening sequence, we return to Starfleet Academy, where Kirk is being reprimanded for refusing to take play by the book while Spock is taking heat for sticking too closely to the rules.  “Didn’t we already do this in the last film?” I asked myself as the movie continued. “Surely we’re not going to tread the same Kirk/Spock rulebreaker/rulemaker ground again?” But lo and behold we did, and as the film spun its wheels I found myself becoming bored at times because I knew exactly where the path lead.  The one surprising turn in the road, Kirk’s death (mirroring Spock’s in Wrath of Khan), is completely invalidated when he is brought back to life by Khan’s blood no less than twenty minutes later.  Add in a virtual lack of motivation on the part of Peter Weller’s villain, the magical ability to warp anywhere in the galaxy at any time, and the fact that Earth has zero missile defenses in the 23^rd century, and you have a script with a glaring amount of holes.  The film closes on the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise gearing up for their next adventure, but I honestly found myself wondering where exactly we had gone on this one.

Overall, Star Trek Into Darkness has great set pieces, cool visuals, and some strong performances, but is heavily weighed down by a script that is just dumb as hell, filled with enormous plot holes and a deus ex machina so flagrant that it could potentially break the series.  Instead of trying to break new ground, the film serves as a rehash of not only famous bits from Star Trek canon but scenes and motifs from the previous movie.  It brings us back to square one, dropping us off at virtually the same ending point as Star Trek 09; no forward movement has been made. Right now, I can’t help but wonder whether the third installment will revive old friends and enemies yet again or truly deliver on its age-old saying and “boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Grade: C+