Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures
Star Trek Into Darkness
B
A Review by Frederick Cholowski
J.J. Abrams has successfully rebooted
the Star Trek franchise. He turned a once convoluted and practically
unwatchable franchise of films and out of it created a new intriguing film
franchises that while different then the productions of old provided a
universal movie going experience for new viewers and memories of Wrath of Khan
for veterans. In comes the second attempt in the rebooted, and watchable Star
Trek film, Star Trek Into Darkness J.J. Abrams attempts to go bigger and darker
in true blockbuster sequel fashion. Ultimately Star Trek Into Darkness is a
good film that misses its ambitions due to some unfortunate plot decisions that
stop the film from reaching where no Star Trek film has ever gone before (well
maybe Khan is in the great category), into the realm of greatness.
After a mission where he put
the Enterprise’s identity on the line to save Spock’s (Zachery Quinto) life James
T Kirk (Chris Pine) is suddenly demoted from his captain position and into
obscurity. After a kick in the butt from his old mentor Captain Pike (Bruce
Greenwood) and a first officer position offer on his old ship things begin to
look up for the formerly high and mighty captain. Then terror arrives in the
form of a former Starfleet spy John Harrison (the wonderful to spell Benedict
Cumberbatch) who after exploding an archive building brings the attack right to
Starfleet causing Kirk, Spock, and Bones (Karl Urban) to return to adventure to
hunt him down.
As with the last film in the
Abrams franchise, Into Darkness plays out much less like a Trek film of the 80’s
and more like a Star Wars prequel. The films are much faster paced and
adventure packed ditching large slow burning suspense for fast wiz bang space
battles. As with the 2009 film (and to a greater extent here as there is more
pound for pound action in this film) the film provides numerous exciting
sequences that are very well executed. The film is often good at building tension
and creating large and interesting set pieces that provide some truly interesting
moments.
The main problems with Star
Trek Into Darkness lies within the plot. The plot and character motivations are
at numerous points completely unexplained, overly convoluted, and makes the
plot feel like it could have been resolved in much simpler ways. The film
suffers in the middle from these convolutions as it seems at points like
characters are just fighting for the sake of fighting without any real
motivation at all. It all feels like the writers needed to get from point A to
point B with some cool moments in between and didn’t really care about
developing some of the plot so it makes complete logical sense.
The other glaring problem
with the film is the climax, or lack thereof. The film has a phenomenal amount
of build and a really potentially cool final set piece, but manages to throw it
all away within the few moments of the film. Yes this is another film that
after all the big space fights and large set pieces ultimately comes down to a
pointless seeming fist fight (it’s the second of two summer blockbusters this
year to do this as Iron Man 3 boils down to fist fights as well). Then the film
just kind of skips straight into a finish ignoring creating any sense of a
climax. The film just kind of ends, and ends up making all the cool set pieces
before it seem like they lead to absolutely nothing. It’s disappointing as all
the action that leads up to it could have been a climax but instead there is a
fist fight and then a whole lot of film that was skipped.
Despite its plot flaws the film
still has amazing chemistry between its characters. Pine, Quinto, and Urban are
all fantastic together and even almost completely replicate the fantastic chemistry
between the three original actors (Shatner, Nimoy, and Kelley). The other memorable
performance in Into Darkness with Benedict Cumberbatch’s surprisingly three
dimensional villain. Cumberbatch’s character could have just been a simple,
disposable terrorist but instead is understandable at points giving an extra
layer to the character. The character also acts as the film’s main “Star
Trekien” political comment regarding terrorism and its many forms. Here it
works because of Cumberbatch measured performance that allows for the comment
to fit in without disturbing the flow of the film.
Visually the film is
stunning, just as the 2009 film was. The space battles are fast paced,
colorful, and multidimensional and the effects that help bring them out are
very good. Also the designs of the new worlds presented in the film are
creative and stunning to look at, especially the world presented in the opening
sequence of the film. The 3D in this film (first 3D film I have been to in a
while been avoiding it) isn’t great but is good enough to not detract too much
from the visual flair of the film. I noticed that at times it was hard to
follow the film in 3D when the shots are speedier but for the most part it
works as a concept. The score is big, loud and proud, and the Star Trek theme
from the TV show isn’t used to the end, the theme of the newer movies is used
constantly within a brassy score. It works in a traditional sci-fi film sense
and actually adds to parts of the film as good scores should.
Star Trek Into Darkness is
another example of a solid summer blockbuster. It’s not great as it has some
interesting plot problems throughout the film, but it provides enough character
and action to remain a solid film throughout. Make it two good Star Trek films
in a row for Abrams and gang.
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