OVP: Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Film: Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Stars: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho

Director: J.J. Abrams

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Writing a review of a film you saw a while ago is not an easy task.  I should know, I regularly employ this tact when I am doing it for the OVP, though I usually have vociferous notes to rely upon while writing those pieces.  In the case of Star Trek Into Darkness, I will begin by saying that I caught the film a while ago, but hadn’t felt compelled to write a review quite yet.  Of course, my OCD and completist attitude (plus the fact that I wanted to make sure I had something to link back toward if it scored a Best Visual Effects nomination) resulted in me writing the piece, and it seems appropriate that it be published today, since it's now available on DVD.

I almost feel like I don’t need to get into the plot at this point, as you’ve all certainly seen it, and because plot doesn’t always feel necessary to the overall arch of the film, but I’ll digress.  We’re left with a young-and-going-rogue Captain Kirk (Pine), his matter-of-fact second-in-command Spock (Quinto), and a plethora of attractive side characters that are meant more for the audience to say “he does look like a young Walter Koenig, doesn’t he?” and less to be anything other than walking reminders of the first crew of the Enterprise.”

The film allows Kirk and Spock a number of different circumstances where they will have to quarrel and bicker about the decisions made by the other, and eventually, we have thrown into the mix a third character, Khan (a twist that was spoiled by every fanboy on the planet before the film premiered, part of the reason we cannot have nice things), whose motives remain icy and whose voice remains unnecessarily chilling.

The film makes myriad wrong turns, but none so severely as with Cumberbatch’s villain.  The problem with giving the audience exactly what it wants is that the audience knows far in advance that Khan is in fact evil, and is certain to be screwing over Kirk and the crew.  Knowing more than the hero is a great literary trope, and one that can and does work well, but it also is a terrible idea when it comes to knowing the calculations behind the villain.  A savvy audience knows inherently not to trust anyone in these sorts of situations, but by making the villain Khan, Abrams might as well have had a neon sign above that glass jail saying "THIS IS THE VILLAIN."  Had he just assumed we knew that Khan was the bad guy and moved on, we would have been fine, but he proceeds to spend the better part of the movie's remainder pretending that Khan could in fact be good, when we clearly know the opposite.  This is a director that doesn't have a lot of respect for his film's ardent fans and their canon.

This leads me into another thing that really bothered me about Into Darkness-it felt like every other action film.  I know that multiple reviewers have commented on how Abrams may make an exciting and gripping action scene, but Star Trek was about a higher ideal, "to boldly go where no man has gone before," but here it seems like the boldest place they've gone is a relatively pollution-free Los Angeles.  The movie loses that sense of an equal utopia that Star Trek made so incredible, and instead it's replaced with high-flying chases and fight sequences.

The acting in the film is also a bit on the lacking side-the side characters, even though they get no great character plot (or plot in general) all mimic well and are fun: Karl Urban as Bones and Anton Yelchin as Chekov in particular stand out as extremely enjoyable.  The leads, though, miss the mark.  Chris Pine gets Kirk's bluster down, but Pine either doesn't have the obvious ego that William Shatner does, or his sharp emotional switches just don't connect: he's a renegade, but he's also the lead of the film, and trying to be both Kirk and James Dean makes him come across as whiny, not cocky.  Zachary Quinto is considerably better, though his relationship with Uhura still feels odd, which I guess it's supposed to be (he's a Vulcan, after all), though their fight throughout the film seemed like something tacked on to give Saldana a more prominent part, and not something organic to the story.  Finally, there's Cumberbatch, who gets that basso profondo down pat, but cannot seem to figure out how to play Khan as anything other than loud and scenery-chewing.  Cumberbatch has pulled off subtle before in films like Tinker Tailor, but his work here is too large, too sneering-where's the fun of the villain?  What's his drive?  We don't see that, and all we're left with is Cumberbatch's constant foreboding and know-it-all enemy.

And we'll leave it right around there-what did you think of Into Darkness, and where does it rank amongst your personal Star Trek favorites?  Are you hoping for a third movie?  Share in the comments!