After an auspicious blastoff in 2009,
J.J. Abrams keeps the success of his Star Trek reboot burning
strong with Star Trek Into Darkness, a slick summer actioner
that takes off at warp speed and rarely lets up.
All the cast members from the original
are back in fine form (including Abrams' nettlesome blue lens
flares): Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as
Uhura, Simon Pegg as Scotty, Karl Urban as 'Bones' McCoy, John Cho as
Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, and Bruce Greenwood as Cpt. Pike. All
of them excelled in 2009's origin story, but with their characters
now firmly established, the writing team of Damon Lindelof, Roberto
Orci, and Alex Kurtzman devote more time to developing the spiky but
loving Kirk-Spock dynamic that is very much the heart of the
franchise. Personifying the conflicting philosophies between logic
and instinct, these two foils make this one of the more thematically
compelling popcorn flicks you're likely to see this summer, at least
whenever it takes the time to stop and breathe.
And there's precious little time to stop and breathe on this spaceship ride. Residual adrenaline from the opening action sequence – an exploration-turned-rescue mission on a primitive planet – has barely dissipated when we run into our story's mysterious villain; resentful terrorist John Harrison played by series newcomer Benedict Cumberbatch. The steely-eyed prettyboy with a voice like Jeremy Irons may not have been the intuitive choice to play an intergalactic baddie, but it proves an ingenious casting decision as Cumberbatch commands then screen with his threatening intellectual demeanor and surprising physicality.
After launching devastating attacks
against Star Fleet and its upper brass, Harrison earns the ire of
Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller), who tasks Kirk with tracking down and
killing the murderous fugitive. This is a request the hotheaded Kirk
is all too eager to oblige. He and his crew hunt Harrison into
hostile Klingon territory, where we eventually learn the true nature
of his vendetta against Star Fleet. Turns out he's not the only one
who can't be trusted.
Even though the script makes a point of
raising ethical questions and moral dilemmas (and bravo for doing
so), they don't leave much of an impression against the spectacle on
display. By this point, the film is bursting with action at the
seams. Abrams flies from set-piece to set-piece at a breakneck pace,
often layering multiple crises on top of one another, particularly
during a perilous spacewalk and a gravity-defying free fall through
Earth's atmosphere.
As smartly written as it is, not all
the plot devices work. The third act's gratuitous reverse twist on
familiar story elements is probably enough to incur the Wrath of
Fans, but causal yet informed followers of Star Trek canon can
likely shrug it off as an amusing throwback. Hey, even mainstream
audiences deserve to enjoy at least a few recognizable references.
Mind you, “amusing throwback” is an incongruous vibe to have when
aiming for emotional beats that many can see coming, and those
moments consequently come off as either unintentionally funny or
annoying (depending on how much you revere the original material).
This is especially so regarding the way-too-convenient resolution
which is foreshadowed so far in advance it's hard to pay much
credence to the crisis it resolves.
A blockbuster this enjoyable is
ultimately immune to such criticisms, valid though they may be. For
all its CG pizazz, Star Trek Into Darkness is more
character-driven than effects-driven, which is why it has such
universal appeal. It may not exactly go where no Star Trek has
gone before, but it certainly goes there boldly, and therein lies all
the fun.
**1/2 out of ****
