Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

After watching Star Trek (2009) and when this one was coming out, I knew I had to see it. I'm not a big, huge fan of Star Trek but this was a fun ride. The crew of the Enterprise is hunting a notorious criminal. But who is the real enemy here? That will be revealed when and if you watch the film. As a reboot film, it worked for me, and the younger versions of the crew really worked, especially Zachary Quinto and Anton Yelchin (may he rest in peace!) as Spock and Chekov respectively. But if you're into deeper meanings like in the original shows, you may want to look elsewhere. This is just an action film in space. The special effects were good too. It's fun for those of you who want to try Star Trek but want action in the mix.

First of all, it does not follow any of the real Star Trek principles. The ship does not look at all like a starfleet ship. The crew does not talk at all like a starfleet crew. Starfleet represented higher ideals and a formal way of managing a ship. The dialogues are so informal, thoughtless and none can believe that real starfleet officers would talk in such a manner. The first impression of Captain Kirk is that of a fearful, uneducated cadet. Leaders are born, not made and this Kirk does not sound like a leader. I am not sure what is worse, the script or the actors or both. The settings look highly technological, which is completely contrary to the fact that the setting of the original Star Trek was not so technologically advanced. They failed to create a believable timeline. Nothing inside the starship, reminds one of a starfleet starship. This vast inconsistency in style is not believable. The story itself has nothing unique, nothing intelligent, it is like a badly written episode of a 7 season series, but without any real plot. It's all action. Nothing on morality, nothing on exploration, it is just a continuous conflict and an attempt to escape unfortunate circumstances. Not even any brilliant strategical or tactical scenes. The worst thing about it, is how they tried to recreate the scene where Spock died in "The Wrath of Khan" with Kirk in his place. It was obvious that that scene was placed there as an attempt to somehow connect the old with the new Star Trek, totally failing as it came across tasteless, and without any sort of justification from the actual plot. They changed everything, only kept the name and some childish references to the older Star Trek. Disappointing.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is the second film in the rebooted STAR TREK series, following on from the lacklustre first. The good news is that this one's a definite improvement, a straight-up action flick with a fast pace that takes your mind off the less-than-impressive moralising and character development of the cast. It starts off very well indeed, with Kirk and co. at the mercy of an unknown mega-villain running rings around Star Fleet, before turning into a typical outer space adventure in the second half.As an ensemble production, few of the cast get a real look-in, with an annoyingly 'heroic' Chris Pine failing to get the viewer on side (he was much better in UNSTOPPABLE) as Kirk and Zachary Quinto a bit stiff as Spock. Simon Pegg is better in his usual comic relief role (the same as his one in the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE franchise) while newcomer Alice Eve is a bit too chipper. It's left to the old pros like Bruce Greenwood and Peter Weller to really excel, although Benedict Cumberbatch is fine too as the villain of the piece, lit to look very much like an alien. Watch out for a great little cameo late on. The rest is a mash-up of heroism, endless CGI spectacle, and ordinary plotting.

I thought this movie was good when I first watched it, but as I thought about it the next day I realized that it makes no sense. Captain Kirk holds Dr. Who the "prisoner" on his ship and protects him because he believed the prisoner's lie, and instead of negotiating logically with the star fleet captain, the star fleet captain opens fire on him...They end up forming an "alliance" to board the star fleet's ship and overthrow them. But then, the prisoner becomes hostile and turns on Captain Kirk. In the end, the prisoner takes control of the supership (instead of Kirk assuming control of the superior ship) and Kirk finds a clever way to destroy the super ship with the prisoner on it...So in the end, both ships were destroyed and the star fleet captain killed (along with his crew and daughter, I think. I don't remember because I fell asleep at some point). And ultimately the prisoner had evil intentions as well! So Captian Kirk essentially made the worst decision he could have made in bargaining with a prisoner and jeopardized the lives of thousands of crew members for an unnecessary and pointless cause (believing a lie). Then he is heralded as some sort of hero, when he could have obeyed his superior's orders and all of this could have been adverted!Of course, this is never addressed in the movie, and instead there is a long and sobby vaccum-chamber scene. I just hated all the slow gushy scenes in this movie and the close-ups of that actor's face all the time. It's like the movie was constructed for women to watch... young women.I'm a fan of science and science fiction though, so I still "enjoyed" this.