Directed by:
J.J. AbramsCinematography:
Dan MindelComposer:
Michael GiacchinoCast:
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Benedict Cumberbatch, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, Peter Weller, Alice Eve (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (14)
If you really wanted to, you could say that Abrams created a multi-layered, sophisticated revival of Star Trek, in which he strengthened and updated all aspects of the classic series, not only its idealism and ethos, but also its campiness. However, it is rather more appropriate to admit that the second new Star Trek has some fundamental problems that make its unintentionally ridiculous elements stand out, with the terrifying replay of all of the main participants at the fore. The script is the film’s Achilles heel, as it is built around a single major twist connected with the revelation of the main antagonist’s name and the resulting variations on the iconic moments of the classic Star Trek films. Other than those elements, however, the film offers nothing else that would attract the viewer’s attention and thus strengthen the effectiveness of those moments. If with the new Star Wars Abrams sponsored the creation of great fan fiction, which inventively varied, overturned, updated and enriched the canon, Star Trek Into Darkness is a prime example of sloppy fanfiction that merely varies its template in a non-conceptual way, but does not bring anything new or independently functional into it. We could theoretically be thankful that Star Trek has thus paradoxically become a frightening example from which the folks at Disney learned and therefore entrusted only the first of the new sequels to Abrams. The second Star Trek showed that Abrams is great at creating new and clever variations of old worlds, but he unfortunately does not know what to do with them the second time around.
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I loved the first movie of this restarted Star Trek series. It was full of action, good effects and it was fun, which is something I was grateful for. Four years ago, it was fun to discover a movie like this, but now these blockbusters are a dime in a dozen and it’s hard to find a really good one. But this one was great. It might not match up to the first movie’s quality, but it definitely comes close. Because Benedict Cumberbatch is absolutely perfect as a villain. And J.J. Abrams is an amazing director, so apart from digital orgasms, you also get plot twists and you get to build an even stronger relationship with actors such as Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto or Simon Pegg, which all makes me happy as a clam. You can clearly see the Star Trek fans in this movie. It’s just a shame that this movie has too little in common with the original decent Star Trek and a good portion of the fans can’t forgive the creators for that. If they only looked past it, they would enjoy a pleasant popcorn fun that has a message behind it, you just have to open up to it enough.
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I stared wide-eyed for two hours as if I were fifteen again. Nevertheless, I have two major criticisms to air. Abrams dragged on the concept of the first film without any significant innovation (the timing of the action scenes fits more or less one-to-one within the runtime) and, most importantly, he hardly works with the villain (and Cumberbatch provides him with what few others can). When I watch it the second time is when I'll decide if it was all on purpose and it's still all about the fire of catchphrases, perfect characters, and "absolute" moments like falling from space, or if J.J. is already on the other side of the galaxy with his thoughts.
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Stay true to your geek enthusiast soul, making Trekkies happy with allusions and references, or pander to the demands of the blockbuster market? That is the question to which this time Abrams didn’t find a satisfying answer to. And so sways between these two approaches, a while this way, a while the other. The instability here rears its head in all aspects. On the one hand a seriously conceived (and criminally underused) villain with incredible motivation played by a charismatic actor and opposite him a comically fresh-faced crew full of puppets to make up the numbers. Although it’s Spock-style emotionally cold, more tears are shed here than at Kim Jong-il’s funeral. It pretends to be a popcorn movie where you don’t have to switch your brain off, but they start coming out with over-combined plans that would seem idiotic even in much dumber pastiches. We get tongue-in-cheek Indian Jones-style escapades and attempts at dark, fateful monumentality topped off with a convolutedly grafted on compulsory deus ex machina-style cameo, incessantly recycled music, unwanted, ridiculous metavariations (the worst being that awful scene “behind the glass) and the rather sudden ending which, rather than being a climax involving the inevitability of fate, looks more like the budget ran out and so the movie didn’t end as it was originally meant to... Simply a messy (and confusing due to the frenetic work in the cutting room) result where the biggest surprise is that Abrams had no problem with exactly the same things in part one.
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Star Trek for the whole family. Whereas the first modern Star Trek movie established bonds (not only between the characters, but between the characters and viewers unfamiliar with Star Trek), the sequel’s plot is built on the danger of those bonds being broken. Several of the alternative family models find themselves in peril. Kirk and Spock are driven by a thirst for revenge after their surrogate father is killed before their eyes. Carol is seeking a new, more trustworthy family onboard the Enterprise and Harrison’s crew has become his family as well. Thanks to the strong family subtext, Into Darkness is emotionally rich, but it doesn’t manage to directly face up to its melodramatic leanings (glycerine tears, Spock bellowing the villain’s name) and relativises them in every possible way through childish joking and placing them in a context that prevents the expression of emotion (Spock’s reaction, for example, is primarily a quote). The attempt at a constantly brisk narrative pace hinders the logical consistency of the story. The characters break or disregard regulations as it suits the screenwriter, some motivations are unclear and a lot of decisions are dubious. On the other hand, Abrams makes excellent use of every piece of the provided information, whether in the dialogue or action scenes (with shots that say more in one go than is common in today’s action movies). He continuously raises the stakes in the build-up of the action sequences: higher probability of error/greater loss, if errors occur/multiplication of objectives to be achieved through action. The final battle is an excellent example of how to overwhelm viewers with spectacle and, at the same time, make them think about the possible impacts of the actions that they have watched. Though it happens on the basis of an unconvincing chain of events, the scene itself is gripping. The dubious significance of similarly self-indulgent episodes in the narrative as a whole repeatedly points out to us that the film follows the narrative logic of television series (or video games). Many events have no consequences and stick out like a sore thumb, though they will thrill the mind of any nerd (a key scene from The Wrath of Khan turned upside down, Alice Eve in her underwear). It is not clear from the presented facts why some things happen in an exceedingly complicated way, or rather why some useless information is being provided to us (the circumstances leading to the explosion in the Archive). Other, more valuable information was left out for the sake of convenience (the improbably quick “modification” of 72 torpedoes before Harrison appropriates them, the premature cut-off of the rescue scene using a human chain, which doesn’t look solid at all). The new Star Trek would need to fill a lot of holes, but even with those holes, it is a top-rate summer blockbuster with a thrilling pace, a humanly monstrous bad guy and tremendous value added for everyone who has spent a fair amount of time in Gene Rodenberry’s world. 85%
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