Star Trek Into Darkness

Not to sound mean, but J.J. Abrams is probably best described as a steady-hand. He can be trusted with multi-million dollar movies of which he’ll give audiences a decent night out and the studios a nice return on their investment. However, he’s yet to give us something that is a standalone classic of a genre, though he’s still got a long way to go career wise. Therefore, it’s as you were with Star Trek Into Darkness. Solid stuff, but no more. The Apocalypse Now sounding plot has Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) sent to a planet to terminate with extreme prejudice (OK, capture) rouge star fleet Commander John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). You don’t need to be a genius to work out who Harrison really is. On that note the references to The Wrath Of Khan aren’t subtle, but they’re smartly handled and Cumberbatch’s icy performance is the continued making of this fine young actor. Of the other main leads Pine and Quinto are already impressively settled into their characters and the development of the bromance between Kirk and Spock brings some nice moments. What with so many crew members it’s inevitable that some of the rest of the cast fall by the wayside and Simon Pegg’s Scotty still isn’t really very funny. Alice Eve also pops up, though it appears only to be in order to give teenage boys a thrill in a cack-handed scene where she appears in her smalls (a moment for which the producers have since apologised for its lack of relevance). Despite the lengthy running time this doesn’t actually begin to flounder until the very end where a standard chase scene (marred by poor special effects) is the disappointing culmination of a film that has been tight up until that point. Still, things bode well for future instalments. Rating: 7/10.