Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Star Trek Into Darkness review

I have always been an old school Star Trek fan. I never liked The Next Generation and some of the other series. My favourite Star Trek film with the original cast was The Wrath Of Khan because Khan is a very strong villain. I never cared much for anonymous Klingons as bad guys. The idea behind the reinvention of the original Star Trek characters was to revive the franchise for a new generation and please old school fans like me with the original characters. And with Star Trek Into Darkness, J.J. Abrams has reinvented Khan so well that I expect him to be around for the next couple of films. The film begins with an action sequence where Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) saves a planet and Spock (Zachary Quinto) but breaks several Star Fleet rules and gets demoted to first officer of the USS Enterprise with Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) as captain. Spock is assigned to a different starship. When Pike is killed, Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) gives the Enterprise back to him and reunites him with Spock and his crew. So the old gang is back together and soon they realize they are after their old enemy Khan. Khan is played by British actor Benedict Cumberbatch. He is best known for playing Sherlock Holmes on British TV. Khan has his gang in cryogenics ready to be thawed out to conquer the universe. Then Marcus turns out to be a rogue and his daughter Carol is an officer on the Enterprise. Carol is played by British actress Alice Eve and she could be a future love interest for Kirk. Some may have seen Alice in Sex and the City 2. The Enterprise is destroyed and it takes the ingenuity of Kirk and Scotty (Simon Pegg) and a couple of near deaths to get out of this spot. Then they go after Khan. Typically, the ending is left open for the inevitable third Star Trek film. I think anyone who liked the first film will like this one. And it has enough action and special effects to keep most science fiction fans happy. My only quibble is that Uhura (Zoe Saldana) mostly complains about her relationship with Spock. He's Spock. What do you expect? If you're a fan of these characters, you'll enjoy the film. And Cumberbatch is a great villain. Check out the trailer.

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