Star Trek Into Darkness

While it was not a perfect series (William Shatner's overacting, less than great production values and an iffy Season 3), the original 'Star Trek' series was a genre landmark and hugely influential and ground-breaking, also a mostly great series in its own right especially for the characters, the relationships and Leonard Nimoy's Spock.

The films based on the original series were a mixed bag. A few great ones with 'The Wrath of Khan', 'The Voyage Home' and 'The Undiscovered Country', one in-between film with 'The Search for Spock' and disappointments with 'The Motion Picture' and particularly 'The Final Frontier'. There were ten 'Star Trek' films before this 2009 reboot, four being based on the 'Next Generation series where the only outstanding one was 'First Contact'. 'Generations to me was another in-between film and 'Insurrection' and 'Nemesis' were two other particularly problematic ones.

Don't think 'Star Trek Into Darkness' is as good as the generally positive critical reception makes out, despite some really impressive elements (more so than those who dislike the film have made out), it is a heavily flawed film and does disappoint as a 'Star Trek' film. At the same time, as a film on its own 'Star Trek Into Darkness' is pretty decent but admittedly it could have been much better. While the disappointment is understandable and personally concur with a lot of the criticisms, it is nowhere near as bad as 'Star Trek' fans who hated it have said, coming from a subjective person this is not a 1/10 film.

Visually, the film mostly looks great. The special effects are mainly fantastic and leave one in awe, while there is audacious and suitably moody cinematography and atmospheric lighting.

Michael Giacchino delivers another winner of a music score, don't remember ever being disappointed by this man. Sure it is familiar, but it fits very well with the film and its mood and is unmistakable Giacchino, a beautiful score to listen to and has a lot of atmosphere.

Where 'Star Trek Into Darkness' scores highly is in the action, it is staged in a way that generates a huge amount of thrilling excitement, tension and suspense. It's well shot too, and JJ Abrams knows how to deliver on the action and spectacle. The sound effects have a lot of authenticity.

Regarding the story, 'Star Trek Into Darkness' evoked mixed reactions from me. It is rich in atmosphere and has some thrilling moments and truly exciting action, while the interplay between Kirk and Spock is brilliantly written and makes one feel quite nostalgic. The casting is in crucial parts bang on with some great performances. Chris Pine has garnered mixed reactions, to me he was more relaxed here and has a charisma that commands the screen.

Zachary Quinto once again nails it as Spock, with huge shoes to fill, capturing perfectly what was so iconic about the character in the first place. Karl Urban is suitably cantankerous, Zoe Saldana is sexy and fiery and Leonard Nimoy makes a moving cameo. Best of all is Benedict Cumberbatch, who is sensational as Khan and is the best thing about the film, Khan is also the most interesting and most developed character and Cumberbatch gives him menacing intensity and sympathetic melancholy, a character who you fear but in some way understand his point of view.

'Star Trek Into Darkness' has a lot of faults though. The script has some clunky moments, has comedy that really doesn't gel and is not very funny and fails to provoke much thought or have much depth, some of it feels dumbed down. Character development, something that 'Star Trek' at its best was particularly good in, is mostly lacking, outside of Khan, most of the cast actually are criminally underused and are very bland in personality (Urban was fine but was too much in the background), Alice Eve is little more than a window dressing plot device that felt incidental to the story and Simon Pegg (who is very funny in other roles) is irritating comic relief.

Despite some good moments, the story was very problematic. That it has a lot of inconsistencies and continuity errors is just one problem, more of an issue was that some of it was in need of much more clarity because some of it is convoluted and under-explored, the big reveal is clumsy and far too obvious and the romance is shoe-horned, forced, underdeveloped and completely unnecessary.

Although most of the film was well made, a few of the techniques that distracted a lot in 'Star Trek' (2009), especially the lens flares, still distract and look cheap. Abrams does action and spectacle well, but fails on what is a large part of 'Star Trek's' appeal when at its best which is the writing and the characterisation, both problematically executed and robs the film of heart and soul. The film is all big and noisy, but the brains and heart are missing.

Overall, nowhere near greatness but hardly the franchise's darkest hour. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Truly spectacular, one of those rare amazing, inventive and often unpredictable blockbusters. The acting was great all round, especially Cumberbatch - wow, he was superb. The direction, cinematography and visual effects were all greatly innovative and brilliant; the screenplay fun, often humorous and has a lot of heart for all its characters which are all really well developed.

The film has some cliché moments which can't be avoided often with a film this scale however they make use of them well and still pack plenty of surprises. As well as this, despite not being a proper Trekkie myself, some moments gave me goosebumps from the awesomeness from seeing the Enterprise for the first time for example, which greatly honoured the original series. J.J. Abrams' lens flares helped create more realism in a lot of the scenes despite the fact he often overuses of them.

The villain was very interesting and the development, dialogue and motivations of his character were very convincing and inventive, Cumberbatch's fantastic acting greatly helped bring this character to life. Also the way he executed his plan showed a lot more cutting edge creativity than especially most modern blockbusters, not to say it's done nearly to the same level of genius but something I haven't felt in a villain's characterisation/acting since The Dark Knight.

Overall, a mesmerising film with nice homages to the original series, one filled with heart, grace, innovation, superb characters and acting and some impressive, clever visuals and immersive 3D, one of the only times I can say that. Up there with the 2009 one, not sure which I prefer, possibly the previous one largely due to the more clever story, despite this one having a much better villain, still not sure though. Still a very strongly recommended film, may hit my top 100 simply because how much I was impressed by it. 9/10!

Yes it's just pure fun. Not a Star Trek fan but I loved the action, the acting and the story. Good visuals and great entertainment. Recommended, 8/10

Abrams is merely an efficient technician, uninteresting as a man of vision. But we need guys like him, conservative and mechanical in their efficiency, who will hold down the paradigm as others more adventurous fight to shift it, who will remind us by the arbitrary limits they impose that there must be a broader space. It's always the routine and familiar that kindles dreaming.

And this is just so routine. Abrams takes the Spielberg-Lucas model of climax after climax, starting with an Indiana Jones prologue. A few simple moral dilemmas form the backbone, inherited with a wink from the Trek genealogy. The hamfisted 9/11 allegory, enforced by terrorist bombings and a final 'plane crash' in Starfleet hq, is that we may covet revenge but we are dehumanized in the process. Khan as a vengeful mujahedeen, 'trained' by the secret military which is headed by a cowboy admiral hellbent on preemptive war. (Interestingly, everything about Khan's handling here bears Nolan's influence.)

Soulless.

So it is fitting that this guy is spearheading the next generation of established cinematic imagination, taking over from Lucas who is now retired, and Spielberg who is 'respectable'. I'm sure that in 20 years time he will be making his own respectable war movies. That kids growing up on stuff like this will fondly elevate the memory. And that his idea of artistry, Welles' action camera dotted by twinkles of color, lasers and flares, will be elaborated on in essays about his aesthetics, maybe.

All of which is just a natural state of things, nothing to get up in arms about. It just means that the interesting stuff will be defined by contrast to him.

The previous Star Trek movie is a tough one to beat. It was (in my eyes) close to perfection (lens flares and all). So this movie had a tough up-hill battle ahead of it. I am happy to report that the writing, direction, cinematography and acting were all terrific. But it's not quite flawless. There are a couple of minor plot holes that distract viewer attention to some degree.

Cumberbatch is brilliant. I won't divulge any spoilers, but I will say that the throw back to the earlier movies is very very clever and well executed. The added depth we see in the characters of Kirk and Spock are icing on an already delicious cake!