3 out of 5

Director: J. J. Abrams

Abrams initial ST entry felt, appropriately, link an event.  It built up to its crew, it built up to its ship, and it built up to its tie-ins.  Being both a tribute and a reboot, it was also a bit more cutesy with its lore references.  But the formula was successful: entertaining on its own, respectful of the past (even though you can’t please everyone, of course), and modern in its structure but mindful of thinking-man’s sci-fi as well.

Into Darkness is a bit conflicted.  It is, essentially, an extended, really great episode of Star Trek – the plot is much more solid and moving than the first film, and the exterior characters – especially our lead villain(s) – have so much more legit personality than the non-principals in film one.  Abrams doesn’t get to flashy and gets down to business and his scripting crew don’t waste time on reintroductions.  But it’s as though realizing that they’d wound up with a 90 minute solid Trek flick that they hadn’t quite fulfilled the whiz-bang explosion needs of Summer blockbusters, a lot of unnecessary noise and effects were written in.  These whiplash battles and scenes of mass destruction are so common place in film now that its tough to make them have gravity, especially so when they don’t feel quite integral to the progress of things.  These moments in the film fill in plenty of that 2 hr 20 minute runtime and slow down a plot that already had some padding worked in.  Combined with some unnecessary subplotting or plot side-stepping that – juxtapose this with the overlong battles – that isn’t given enough screentime to really have much bearing on how you feel toward events or characters, we wind up with a Trek flick that, at its core, is better than film one, but taken as a whole isn’t nearly as graceful or consistently compelling.

So pick up some time after film one with our crew during their Trek thing, and as he did previously, Abrams opens up with speed: Bones and Kirk running through a ‘forest’ chased by an alien species.  It’s a lot of bluster right away but also one of the most gorgeous sets I’ve seen in some time, the trees all tinted red and the ‘leaves’ like strips of paper.  The race in pursuit are equally fascinating – crumbly skinned bipeds with facial features just off enough of human to look interesting.  It’s a really wonderful summary of new and old Trek, the same sense of exploration and fascination mixed with the modern sense of speed.  But with our ante upped since it’s a sequel, the first troublesome elements of effects overkill come into play as events quickly escalate into a scene that requires dumping Spock into a volcano as it erupts, all within 15 minutes.

Prime Directive violated, Kirk demoted, then a terrorist attack and movie conveniences make Kirk (a little too easily) the man in charge on a suspiciously non Star Fleet sounding military mission to annihilate the terrorist responsible, who’s cleverly hiding out in Klingon space.  From here on out fans of the original ST movie series should be pleased with J. J. and team’s satisfying treatment of the material, which rewrites and updates key and subtle moments to great effect, our main baddie brought to rather terrifyingly odd life by Benedict Cumberbatch.

For various reasons the way this all plays out isn’t quite as “brave” as the 80s version, and the frequent ducking into loud bangs and zoops sort of distracts from how fun it is (making this, for better or worse, something better to watch on a small screen), but everyone is cast to a ‘T’ and it keeps you on your toes with dribbles of various cool ideas.  J. J.’s framing isn’t particularly strong, which is what makes this feel more like TV and less like a movie, but its nice in that sense as well, allowing the ensemble crew to all get a fair shake on the screen.  And special nod to Abrams regular Michael Giacchino’s score – the pacing works better with his tribal beat sensibilities and his updates of the ST theme’s are layered in more effectively than in film one, making the music a constant notable enhancement to the on-screen action.