Movie Review: Star Trek: Into Darkness

Saw my first summer movie today.  Thought I'd do a review.

Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)



Right off the bat, let's clear up a few things.  First, I don't consider myself to be a "Trekkie."  When I explain, some of you may say I still qualify.  Just the same, I don't claim the title.

If you say a "Trekkie" is a fan of Star Trek in its various iterations, then I do qualify in most respects.  I remember watching the original series on Saturday afternoons as a kid.  Of course, it was far into re-runs by then (this was the mid 80s), and looked its age even then.

I was later a devoted viewer of Star Trek - The Next Generation.  I still enjoy an episode of that one if I caught it on TV, but they've been out of re-runs for some time in my area.  And not too many years back, I watched the entire series via the "library of the Internet," as I like to term it.  No, I won't be explaining myself further on that turn of phrase, as I don't wish to be construed as advocating piracy.  Let's just say that I think shows that I could have recorded via VHS and watched later are not off limits from re-watching via... other channels.  But if I had money, I'd buy the box set of "TNG," as it is called.  But only if I had plenty of money and all my other needs were getting covered (food, gas, house, etc...).

I'm getting off topic here, aren't I?  I didn't mind the ideas in Deep Space Nine, but I thought they went way off on some things by the last season and... well, I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it.  Ditto with Voyager.  And I only saw maybe half a season of Enterprise.  I found it to be way too much of a stretch.  It's the Enterprise, but its not the Enterprise as I grew up with?  Maybe they explained it better later in the series.  The point is, I never gave them a chance to do so.

Cast of the original series, which according to what may be an urban myth, was pitched to the TV network as "'Wagon Train' to the stars."  Who watches Wagon Train anymore, I'd like to know?  / Source: GeekRest.com

Then came 2009's Trek reboot with J.J. "Lens-flare" Abrams at the helm.  I was skeptical, but I went, and actually quite enjoyed it.  So I went into Into Darkness with the same sort of hopes.  Would it be as good as the first one?  Based on the trailer, I was - again - skeptical.  We're re-using all the stuff from the first one here, I thought.  This usually means the filmmaker didn't have enough steam to pull off another one, and is just coasting on the success of the first.

So how did it go?, you are wondering.  Then again, chances are good you already saw it, if you are interested in the genre.  And based on word-of-mouth, people seem to think it is pretty good.

Me?  I did like it.  But not totally.  In fact, I still like the first one best.

Here's why.  I realize some of my comments will be biased based on the fact that the first Star Trek film I distinctly remember seeing was Wrath of Khan.  And, to my wife's chagrin (she hates it - mostly because of the critters-that-go-in-the-ears scene), I like Wrath.  I mean, what's not to like?  You've got the whole Ceti Alpha Six thing, where Chekov and that one guy go down to the planet and discover that they've landed on a planet quarantined because it contains the crew of the Botany Bay, a cryogenic prison ship containing some really horrible genetically-enhanced supermen led by Ricardo Montalban, who scared me as a little boy (I was six or seven when I first saw this movie, and the guy was then - and remains to this day - one of those sorts who embodies the term "villain" to me).  And then things get interesting.  A commandeered Star Fleet vessel.  Kirk has a kid?  Torture. A super source of creation turned to a super weapon.  Kirstie Alley in her "hot" days.  A cat and mouse chase through a nebula.  And a really good old-fashioned ending; i.e.: the heroes are saved when one of their own sacrifices himself and the ship escapes the certain destruction it faced only moments before.

I first saw the movie poster for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan while on vacation with my family.  I can't recall where we were (I was still pre-teen at the time) but it was some small tourist trap town in a state full of such places.  We had stopped for gas or were looking through a gift shop or some such.  Maybe both.  Anyway, I distinctly remember seeing this poster lying among a pile of other doo-dahs, and remember getting excited all over again about Wrath of Khan.  Of course, this was before we had a VCR (many years before, in my family), so I couldn't just go home and see it.  But I also remember being puzzled by the tag "At the end of the universe lies the beginning of vengeance".  I recall thinking, even at that tender age: "Come on, the universe is a really big place!"  But it did make the wheels in my own imagination turn, that idea... / Source: AintItCool.com

After listing all that, I think on Into Darkness and have to say, it didn't de-throne Wrath of Khan as either a Star Trek film, nor as a follow-up to a Star Trek movie series.  I gotta re-emphasize here - I did like Into Darkness.  But as far as comparisons go, Wrath of Khan saved the stumble-step of the first set of films when Star Trek - The Motion Picture nearly sunk the whole thing.   Into Darkness just kept the flame going for this reboot series.

So what did I like about it?  Well, the film was visually stunning, and very exciting.  The character development was good, and a lot of would-be sci-fi filmmakers (of which there are plenty these days - witness this summer alone for proof) should take note.  A film set in a fantastic setting needs to be just that much more grounded in its characterization, so as to help the audience relate.  If we don't, the movie is...  well, The Phantom Menace.

What else?  The plot was more conventional compared to the re-arrangement that the 2009 Star Trek film offered.  It's a flat out "hunt the guy down" sort of story.  There are some twists, but it isn't terrifically deep or convoluted or anything.  That's a good thing, but also left me feeling a bit off base.  Like I pegged the admirals' daughter (the blond gal who we got the gratuitous underwear shot of half way through - I forget her character's name) as being a saboteur or something, and then she turned out not to be.  Oh, I suppose I need to call Spoiler Alert here and now, just to be safe.  Sorry about that.

What else did I like?  Into Darkness was exciting.  This will play back in on the downside though, so watch for that.  And I liked that the characters were faced with a multitude of unusual circumstances that they had to deal with.  You may be saying: "well, duh, that's a movie for you."  What I mean is, the characters had to deal with things that we, as the viewers, could relate to.  Like Chekov becoming chief of engineering for awhile.  Stuff that didn't fit the typical scenario.  That was one thing the original series had trouble with.  Everybody got so stuck in their roles that - had they had the tech at the time - they could have done CGI characters with good improvisation voice actors and you'd have had a hard time telling the difference.  Especially in some of the worse movies from that bunch.  Star Trek 5, anybody?

Cumberbatch had more physicality in the role of Khan than Montalban, but Montalban just had... presence. / Source: celluloidandcigaretteburns.blogspot.com

But you could tell that Into Darkness was carefully crafted, and audiences appreciate that these days.  Well, this audience does, anyway.

OK, my gripes.  First off, I didn't much like the Klingons.  Why not?  Well the planet Kronos seemed so much like a video game setting to me.  It just didn't feel authentic.  The deserted city, and the design of the pursuit ships, and the whole fight scene where Harrison/Khan shows up and saves the day?  It didn't work so well for me.  Mind you, I didn't mind the physical changes they made to the Klingon physiology, as they weren't too radical.  I was annoyed that they had masks on.  As my wife said: "We came to see Klingons."  So pony up already.

What else?  I wasn't totally buying the whole "we built a ship to fight the war that is coming"-thing.  I did like that in some ways it resembled the NCC-1701-D Enterprise in the Next Generation TV series (and other versions too, to be sure), but the idea itself was a little convenient.  I thought the admiral leading the charge over-played it a bit too.  A bit too one-dimensional, him.

As for Cumberbatch?  For this film, he was quite sufficient.  As I have alluded to, he is no Ricardo Montalban.  And the end, where he gets shut back up in his tube?  Not sure I buy that.  Too much of a "we'll see him again" approach.  I liked Wrath of Khan for that.  No coming back from that final scene.  Well, except for Spock, that is.

What else?  The fight scene on the red hover ships at the end went on a bit long.  Yes, Khan vs. Spock is a big deal,  but it seemed to get on longer than I thought it needed to.

My wife made the point (and I agree) that the Enterprise crashes or is significantly in danger of crashing far too often in these films.  Yes, we need tension, but destroying the ship over and over starts to stretch things.  And how many times are they going to rebuild this ship, anyway?

Looking at the Klingons again...  I still don't like the masks, and the face is too... something.  I'm still not sure I like it.  My wife quipped that they are too pretty to be Klingons.  That isn't it for me, but they don't look...  I don't know... Klingon-enough, I guess. / Source: UK.Movies.Yahoo.com

My last gripe is the blood thing.  Using Khan's blood to save Kirk was a bit Dues Ex Machina to me.  Of course, it saved us from doing what they did in Wrath of Khan - that is, appear to be killing off a beloved character - but it still was a bit too convenient.  But to take a quote used repeatedly in the HBO series The Sopranos (which I just finished last night - wow) "Whaddya gonna do?"

Having said all that, in the end these gripes, even when taken all together, are a small thing.  The film was quite entertaining, and I even got a bit misty-eyed when they pulled the turn-around of Spock and Kirk and the warp core scene.  And then got annoyed because I felt like I had been manipulated to feel emotion over a "dumb" movie.  But a small price to pay.  I'd recommend the film.  I don't think it was as good as the first one, but I do think it was better than most of the sci-fi shlock Hollywood puts out these days.  Definitely glad I saw it in the big theater.  This one is worth your popcorn dollars, if you like the genre and can overlook its few flaws.

In the end what I guess I'm saying, and my wonderful wife agrees too, is that Star Trek went so far off the rails with the various TV iterations that it stopped feeling like Star Trek.  And that was it's downfall.  Abrams and Co. have managed to bring back all the good humor, excitement, and awe that  Star Trek stood for in my childhood, and that is saying something.  Now if he can do alright with Star Wars...  and please J.J.  Easy on the lens flare in the Millennium Falcon, OK?

My wife just said: "Dang it, now I want to see the Wrath of Khan!"  Into Darkness must have been good if she feels like watching that.

Here's a story from SlashFilm.com that agrees with (and better states) some of my gripes.

And another article that cites some of the same things, but approaches them as good points instead of gripes (from BuzzFeed.com).

And this article states that Khan was shoe-horned into the plot after it had already been written, which makes sense in hindsight (TheMarySue.com)


The parting comment:



Nice.