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.
