Star Trek: Into Darkness

Without wanting to give away any spoilers; Star Trek: Into Darkness is a brilliant film, easily the years best offering so far. Excellent performances and a well crafted story complement some spectacular action pieces. But I do think I liked the first film a little bit more.

SPOILER FILLED Full thoughts after the jump.

I love the way the movie starts, with the crew in full swing trying to save a planet. From there the film doesn’t let up. The story is very well done and keeps the audience guessing as it speeds through set piece to set piece. The pacing is absolutely relentless, speeding from one place to another, but before there’s any danger of it becoming overwhelming, it slows down to let you catch your breath.

One of these slower parts allowed some heart warming development of the bond between Kirk and Pike, which only makes it more painful when he dies. DAMMIT JJ.

Benedict Cumberbatch as John Harrison. Wow. Quite possibly the best villain performance in Star Trek history. At the start of the film he’s more of an ‘unsettling  presence’, but then he completely explodes and dominates the rest of the film.

Turned out, he was Khan after all. I was a little disappointed that they took this root at first, but that was quickly washed away by how excellently the character is used. I especially liked how you actually see how he is superior; he doesn’t just keep saying it over and over to try to convince the audience (as was the case in ‘The Wrath of Khan’). He’s incredibly intelligent, manipulative, and ferociously brutal. Benedict Cumberbatch is a superior Khan.

I think I’m alright with them re-using old characters as long as they’re used well, as Khan was here. But let’s not get too comfortable doing that eh? New stuff’s good too. Plus at least now they don’t have to deal with the more manic fan base demanding Khan all the time.

The other cast is excellent as well; Chris Pine gives a very powerful performance and the character of Kirk really grows in this film. Zachary Quinto was again brilliant as Spock. I really like the way they’re using his struggle to suppress emotion to give heart to these films.

Alice Eve, was very good as weapons expert Carol Marcus. I’m glad it looks like she’s sticking around for future films. And after that scene she’s probably become the subject of nerd crushes everywhere.

The rest of the cast play slightly smaller roles, but they all get their time to shine. Simon Pegg’s Scotty in particular gets a good side part of the story.

On side note, one of his lines in this film has the best swear word censorship I have ever heard! “Holy sh(Star Trek door swish)”.

There were lots of great moments for followers of the franchise.

The section of Kirk sacrificing himself to save the Enterprise before having a heart to heart with Spock was a beautifully haunting mirror of a similar piece in ‘The Wrath of Khan’. The lines are near identical at some points. Some have found the sequence to be a bit too similar to the scenes it pays homage to, but I thought it was Incorporated very well and in fact feel it works a lot better in this film that it did before; Kirk finally confronts the Kobayashi Maru scenario to save his ship and crew.

The only bit that felt a little too forced to me was, yep, the KHAAAAAN scream. Though, despite not really being necessary and clearly being added for the fans, I think it worked better here. Spock is full of grief and anger at the death of his friend. In ‘The Wrath of Khan’, it is full of anger from the character, but any significance was washed away when you find that Kirk wasn’t bothered about being stuck in the planet and knew the Enterprise would pick him up the whole time.

The surprise brief appearance of Leonard Nimoy as old Spock was also a nice touch.

I really feel that, despite essentially being a reboot, the new Trek films are actively embracing and celebrating the previous ‘canon’. As a huge Trek fan, I really appreciated these elements, but they’ve got to be careful not to end up over relying on the past for the plots. That’s why they started fresh after all.

The soundtrack is once again magnificent. Many of the previous themes return albeit with slight changes. Of the new ones, Harrison’s themes and the Klingon chanting in particular stand out. I mentioned before that this film gives a lot of nods to the franchises past and the soundtrack is no exception; there is even a little classic Trek easter egg in the music in the later parts of the film.

Visually, the film keeps its distinct ‘futuristic retro’ vibe.

There’s some new sets this time, including corridors and a new look at the warp core; now a large spherical chamber/device, presumably positioned under the cylindrical ‘tanks’ seen in the first film.

We finally got a good look at the Klingons in this film. They look awesome in their helmets/masks. I don’t know what these people complaining that they didn’t look Klingon are on about; the only one we saw unmasked looked very reminiscent of some of the Klingon variations in ‘The Undiscovered Country’, albeit with piercings.

The visual effects are top notch; ship and city models are full of detail and the damage they receive is even more impressive.

There’s a new warp effect for this film; streaks of blue left behind by the warp engines that dissolve into particles. It’s nice but I preferred the sudden, clean warp jump in the first film. I have a feeling it was mainly added due to the release in 3D.

Speaking of which, the 3D was pretty good. I never felt it added anything overly significant to the film, but there was one point at the start where I flinched at a spear coming towards the camera. That’s a first!

The Enterprise is once again beautiful and gleaming. Her nemesis for this film, the USS Vengeance, looks unsettlingly dark and monstrous for a Starfleet ship; which is fitting considering its purpose in the film.

A little detail I liked was the auxiliary torpedo tubes in the port and starboard sides of the Enterprise. I’ve wanted to see that for ages; why should a ship have to wait until directly facing its opponent to fire its big guns when under attack? I really hope this leads to some galleon style naval battles in future entries, as they weren’t really used this time around.

Which brings me onto the only two issues I have with the film…

Firstly the Enterprise herself doesn’t get that much screen time, and when she does, she doesn’t do much but get shot at. Not that I thought there needed to be a big extended space battle, both Into Darkness and its predecessor both prove that you don’t need one to make a compelling sci-fi film, but I’d have liked to see the Enterprise at least try to defend herself a little before being completely crippled.

The second is only a visual thing; I don’t like the changes made to the Enterprise at the end of the film. Some are minor, some are more significant and they change the look enough to alter the ‘feel’ of the ship. I might do another post on that at a later date.

Both of these gripes are very minor things, and on the whole, ‘Into Darkness’ is an excellent film Though I do like JJ’s first a bit more; The Enterprise had more of an active starring role and I guess I like seeing things start. It felt a little bit more ‘rounded’ as well, but I’m not really sure how to elaborate on that.

Still, ‘Star Trek: Into Darkness’ is an excellent follow up to Abrams’ first Star Trek. The rest of this years films have a lot of work to do if they want to top it.