Chris Reviews Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek is a franchise that I have invested quite a bit of time and money in. Having watched almost every show with the exception of the animated series and owning all the films on Blu-ray and having watched each of them at least a dozen times I feel like I am qualified to know a thing or two about Star Trek. So obviously this was one of my most highly anticipated films this summer. Did it live up to expectations or did it fall flat on its face? Keep on reading if you want to find out.

The Good-

Similar to the 2009 Star Trek this film impresses with visual effects and action scenes. The opening scene which involves the crew attempting to save an alien race from being destroyed by a volcano is pretty enjoyable. The scale of the action scenes get bigger and bigger until we have ships blowing each other to pieces and crashing into cities. While the action is the primary selling point in these recent Star Trek films I do like the actors that  they have playing the crew. Kirk and Spock have a solid chemistry that helps power the film and Scotty, McCoy and Uhura all get time to shine (Sulu and Chekov don't get much to work with here). So this film essentially has everything going for it that its predecessor did.

The Bad- (SPOILERS!)

In order to fully flesh out my complaints it is necessary to give a few spoilers so read on at your own risk! First lets address the structural issues with this film because there are numerous logical issues, poorly written characters and moments, not to mention that the third act pretty much rips off Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Starting with the opening scene there are things that do not make sense. While the crew is attempting to save the planet the Enterprise is hiding under water, why does this make any sense to do this? They are using a shuttle craft and end up transporting Spock out of the volcano in the first place so what was the purpose of hiding the ship underwater when they could have done the same thing in orbit? Obviously the reason is so that they could throw in a cool effect shot of the ship coming out of water. This scene encapsulates my entire problem with J.J. Abrams directing style in that he pushes action and effects over logic.

There are a lot more scene like this but I don't want to ruin the entire film for you. Now lets talk about the poorly written characters. There are two major characters in the film that I have issues with. Carol Marcus is probably the biggest waste of screen time in the film with the exception of her undressing scene that has caused a lot of controversy. The problem with her character is that she really has no purpose in the entire film. She sneaks on board to investigate these weird torpedoes and helps with that, then just hangs around until her dad tries to destroy the Enterprise and gets transported to that ship and then Khan breaks her leg and that's about it. They were clearly trying to do fan service as Carol Marcus was an important character in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (created the Genesis Device and mother of Kirks son David) but they failed to make her interesting or even establish a relationship with Kirk.

Looks or brains?

The Second Character that I had a lot of problems with is Khan. Yet another character they ripped off from the previously mentioned film. There were several things I was disappointed about with his character, the first is that he used way to much
exposition to tell his story. There are several scenes where he is just standing in a cell telling them stories of what he has done. It would have been much more compelling had they shown this. His motivations where very confusing, I know he wanted to save his crew but why did he put them in torpedoes to hide them in the first place. That seems like just about the dumbest place to hide people. Overall he was just a very bland and poorly thought out villain which is disappointing when compared to Ricardo Montalban's fantastic performance in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Which Khan did you like better?

I know some people will argue that we should not compare it to past films and that I am just being a fanboy. While that seems like a valid argument I really don't think it applies in this situation because the filmmakers asked for this. They were the ones who decided to rip off stuff from the best of all the Star Trek films and thus asked for this comparison. Why couldn't they have come up with an original villain and story? It's because J.J. Abrams just does not understand Star Trek and makes films like someone who only knows the pop culture references. The third act is a great example of this and is where the film really falls apart. Abrams decides that he wants to rip off arguably the best scene of any Star Trek film (Spock's Death) except he is going to have a twist and kill Kirk instead. The scene is completely unconvincing as they blatantly show you in some previous scenes that they will be able to bring him back to life. So the scene serves no real purpose except for making a reference to a past film. Then of course we get Spock yelling KHAN! which is a cringe worthy scene as it is just so tacky. I could go on and on with complaints about this film but I think that would just be beating a dead horse.

You can't top this

Summary-

This is film that features some solid action sequences and visual effects but lacks the emotional depth of previous Star Trek films. The writing is borderline awful and unoriginal and the film pisses on pretty much everything that it means to be a Star Trek fan. I put this near the bottom of the barrel of Star Trek films right up there with Star Trek V and Star Trek Insurrection.

MY RATING

2.5 out of 5

-Chris "Da Franchize" Hart