Star Trek Into Darkness

Long overdue but here goes.... Star Trek franchise was relaunched in 2009 with the original characters from the Original series, but with fresh new faces. The film received very good reviews and the verdict was positive...so obviously, there had to be a secod film.

Star Trek Into Darkness was an impressive sequel with a great story which was held together by the friendship of James.T.Kirk and Spock shown by director J.J.Abrams.

Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock showed their abilities in the first film but in this one, they exceed their expectations and completely dazzle the audience with their rapport. Benedict Cumersbatch was just brilliant as well Zoe Saldana and the rest of the cast! Brilliant acting....no doubt about it!

SPOILER ALERT!

Star Trek Into Darkness punches straight into an immediate manhunt movie. A bomb goes off in a Starfleet archive in London — 23rd century England will boast a skyline of buildings apparently — and the race is on to track down the terrorist, well-coutured renegade John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). Abrams’ first Trek movie was criticised for not following the Roddenberry tenet of holding up a mirror to real-world issues. Into Darkness couldn’t be more prescient. Just weeks after the events in Boston, this keys into a hunt for a bomber, with Kirk given orders to forgo a fair trial (“I’m gonna run this bastard down”) and terminate Harrison with Star Trek’s version of extreme prejudice — undetectable photon torpedoes. 

Cumberbatch’s Harrison  is, in essence, a one-man army — watch him waste an arsenal of helmeted soldiers or take a vicious beating from Kirk with barely a flinch, or brutally batter some Federation flunkies. Yet, as you might expect from an actor who can comfortably portray Sherlock Holmes and Stephen Hawking, Harrison is as intellectual as he is muscular. 
It is a testament to the power of his performance that, although his early appearances are greeted with the most over-the-top Evil Musical Motifs imaginable, he manages to make Harrison ambiguous and chilling throughout.
"If the first film was about the coming together of the Enterprise crew, then Harrison’s threat means they have to divide to conquer. The strong ensemble — rejoice in the growing Kirk-Spock bromance, or Bones’ bad aphorisms, or a collector’s moment of Sulu steeliness without his sword — have etched likable sketches of the nascent TV icons, but you’d like time to hang with them a bit more. Similarly, you pine for a sustained Hannibal Lecter-Clarice Starling duel of wits between Kirk and Harrison, but it never quite happens. Abrams has real skill at dropping character beats in the heat of battle — Kirk and Spock get slivers of interesting arcs; the former is learning to become a captain, the latter is learning to be a friend — yet the film doesn’t give the emotions space to resonate and take hold."
Abrams directs with lots of flare, but, more importantly, flair. His style is somewhere between the machine-tooled work of Cameron and the manic intensity of Bay, efficient but still loose and seemingly improvised.

Working with screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof, Abrams can flip between different tones in a heartbeat.... a comedic lovers’ tiff in the midst of battle turns into an affecting meditation on fear — and will leave no stone unturned in trying to entertain: tense bomb disposal, intense inter-race negotiations, big ship-little ship cat and mousery, Simon Pegg comic relief, a chase at warp speed, disaster movie mayhem and amazing performances by every single member of the cast. Not all of it works — compared to the opener, the last-reel action is enjoyable rather than jaw-dropping — but there is the sense of a true showman at work. Like George Lucas, J.J.Abrams doesn’t care about science-fiction and transwarp beaming. He just wants you to have as much fun as humanly possible.

If this is Abrams’ final frontier, he has left Star Trek in a good place, both in the fictional universe and as a franchise. In some sense, the title is misleading. Into Darkness is a blast, fun, funny, spectacular and exhilarating. The rule of great even-numbered Trek movies continues.

RATING SYSTEM

Performance 9/10

Direction 9/10

Story/Script 8.5/10
Action 8.5/10

Music/Soundtrack 8/10
Cinematography 9/10

I give this film 8.67/10 "8.67 out of 10"
Rating: Slick! Clean! Thrilling!