Full
disclosure: of all the Stark Trek chapters whether in books, TV
episodes and movies I have only seen 2 of the 6 Star Trek movies. Being
fairly new to what has been around for nearly 50 years I hope “Star
Trek Into The Darkness” as a stand alone movie doesn’t represent all the
previous stories. I felt a lot depended upon being a ‘trekkie’ and
knowing what came before.
The
current film, in spite of the title, has more strobe lights and
different colors than any movie I have seen in a long time. Between
“Oblivion” and “Iron Man 3” this movie had very poorly executed
non-special effects except how San Francisco will look years from now.
The fights whether between men or machines were very lame.
The
screenplay by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof offered
some looks into the human side of all from a possible romance between
Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Nyota (Zoe Saldana) if not a bromance between
Spock and Kirk (Chris Pine) though I didn’t know who the latter was
until later in the film when he is referred to as Captain James T. Kirk
and, for whatever reason, I immediately thought of William Shatner.
The
standouts were Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain with Simon Pegg as
Scotty offering the only laughs along the way. Whether the rest of the
cast were satisfactory to Trekkies I didn’t have any problems with John
Cho, Alice Eve, Bruce Greenwood, Peter Weller or any of the other
actors.
A
new director and other screenwriters would bring a lot more to the
sequel than those involved with this did. With many more ‘summer’
special effects blockbuster movies on the way I would suggest skipping
this one.