Star Trek Into Darkness doesn’t boldly go where no one has gone before, but puts twists on familiar plots and character development. J. J. Abrams abandons complicated time travel explanations used to describe the origin story to properly flesh out the characters and some of the conflicts they will have to go through. Into Darkness mines the deep well of Kirk and Spock’s relationship to great effect and sets the stage for what should be a stellar intergalactic sequel. Plus, who could not be frightened of a villain whose played by a guy named Benedict Cumberbatch?
We are a few years removed from events from the first film. Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and 1st Officer Spock (Zachary Quinto) are now fast friends and work very well together. After an off-script mission where Kirk saves Spock by not following protocol, he is demoted to first officer with Commander Pike (Bruce Greenwood) retaining his ship. Enter John Harrison (Cumberbatch), a terrorist who bombs London then promptly disappears into deep space. In their pursuit of the fugitive, the Starship Enterprise takes on a new weapons specialist (Alice Eve), who may have some secrets boiling beneath the surface.
The cup runneth over with the interplay between Kirk and Spock; the contradiction of logic and feelings is ceaselessly entertaining and emotionally wrenching. Star Trek Into Darkness builds the story around the testy relationship of the two leads. At times, the interplay is extremely funny, especially the logic delivered by Spock. However, when the darkness takes hold, their bond and knowledge obtained from one another leads to some extremely powerfully acted scenes between Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto. Sometimes in showdowns with villains, character development is abandoned to get right to the final battle; in Star Trek Into Darkness’s case, the chase through the streets of San Francisco has you deeply invested in tracking down John Harrison and bringing him to justice because of the bond developed between Kirk and Spock.
There are a lot of sci-fi movies coming out this summer, but Star Trek Into Darkness may be the best use of space and city I have seen in a long time. The scenes in space have this epic grandeur with a couple of space battles and a skydrop by Kirk and Harrison from one ship to another (probably the space highlight of the film). When the scenes move to planets or spaceships, grandeur of an explosion or fight is properly contextualized. Kirk and Scotty have a dash to a control room reminiscent of a scene from Inception. The explosions from crash landings are so well realized I was a little shaken at how much I was affected by seeing so many buildings fall. Weapon use gets a little arbitrary during these scenes to make the battles more intimate, but in doing so the necessary catharsis for characters is generated.
The ultimate reveal of who John Harrison is will not be explained in this review. However, the set up of his conflict with the USS Enterprise is a mixed bag. Much effort is spent placing parallels between Kirk and Harrison (former captains, viewing a crew as a family, etc) in hopes there will be payoff at the end, but that comparison never fully materializes. It does set up very interesting complications for Kirk going forward though. The fate of one of the characters uses a Macguffin given by Harrison that will be hard justifying why other characters could not be saved in a similar matter. These inherent issues will have to be addressed by the writing staff of the next film so the Star Trek franchise doesn’t go flying off the wall.
With one film under their belt to understand their characters, Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto get to flesh out their relationship to each other in this film. As previously mentioned, they do very good work: Pine captures Kirk’s lusts and emotions very well; Quinto is even better simultaneously delivering hilarious lines of logic straight and erupting with emotion when his human side is forced to surface. As the chief villain, Benedict Cumberbatch gets to monologue in cold, icy language as Harrison plus display a T-1000 esque physical presence. Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Bruce Greenwood, Zoe Saldana, and John Cho get to do some good work in their roles and give the film much of its heart and humor. Newcomer Alice Eve’s back story is rushed and not mined for full effect. Her purpose seems to be for future films. She does look very pretty though.
Star Trek Into Darkness (following Iron Man 3) delivers on what is expected of a summer blockbuster. It is equal parts humor and heart with great special effects to dazzle the senses. If JJ Abrams invigorates Star Wars with as much punch as he has done with Star Trek, nerds from both sides will have to wage an all out war to claim him.