Star Trek into Darkness

Stay true to your geek enthusiast soul, making Trekkies happy with allusions and references, or pander to the demands of the blockbuster market? That is the question to which this time Abrams didn’t find a satisfying answer to. And so sways between these two approaches, a while this way, a while the other. The instability here rears its head in all aspects. On the one hand a seriously conceived (and criminally underused) villain with incredible motivation played by a charismatic actor and opposite him a comically fresh-faced crew full of puppets to make up the numbers. Although it’s Spock-style emotionally cold, more tears are shed here than at Kim Jong-il’s funeral. It pretends to be a popcorn movie where you don’t have to switch your brain off, but they start coming out with over-combined plans that would seem idiotic even in much dumber pastiches. We get tongue-in-cheek Indian Jones-style escapades and attempts at dark, fateful monumentality topped off with a convolutedly grafted on compulsory deus ex machina-style cameo, incessantly recycled music, unwanted, ridiculous metavariations (the worst being that awful scene “behind the glass) and the rather sudden ending which, rather than being a climax involving the inevitability of fate, looks more like the budget ran out and so the movie didn’t end as it was originally meant to... Simply a messy (and confusing due to the frenetic work in the cutting room) result where the biggest surprise is that Abrams had no problem with exactly the same things in part one. (07/06/2013)

The story of the most genuine and strongest male friendship – and breathtaking action/adventure into places where many would never dare set foot as a little bonus. Chris Pine proves that the moment he puts on the yellow-black suit, he absolutely nails everything; Karl Urban traditionally expresses the emotions involved, even if it's just raising an eyebrow; and this time around the tried-and-true creative team is playing it safe Although in a few places they unnecessarily rely on the audience's knowledge of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Abrams and the screenwriters didn't miss this opportunity. Almost every bit of dialogue leads to explosive consequences, and in the face of an unpredictable character that Benedict Cumberbatch gives the power of a fallen angel, all criticisms must inevitably fade away. Not to mention that during the final half hour, it almost exclusively plays on the first emotional signal and rational considerations are definitively put aside. An astonished 90%, with a lingering slight trembling and eternal sadness that the creator of the best reboot in history has sailed off into a galaxy far, far away. (21/06/2013)

I stared wide-eyed for two hours as if I were fifteen again. Nevertheless, I have two major criticisms to air. Abrams dragged on the concept of the first film without any significant innovation (the timing of the action scenes fits more or less one-to-one within the runtime) and, most importantly, he hardly works with the villain (and Cumberbatch provides him with what few others can). When I watch it the second time is when I'll decide if it was all on purpose and it's still all about the fire of catchphrases, perfect characters, and "absolute" moments like falling from space, or if J.J. is already on the other side of the galaxy with his thoughts. (11/06/2013)

If you really wanted to, you could say that Abrams created a multi-layered, sophisticated revival of Star Trek, in which he strengthened and updated all aspects of the classic series, not only its idealism and ethos, but also its campiness. However, it is rather more appropriate to admit that the second new Star Trek has some fundamental problems that make its unintentionally ridiculous elements stand out, with the terrifying replay of all of the main participants at the fore. The script is the film’s Achilles heel, as it is built around a single major twist connected with the revelation of the main antagonist’s name and the resulting variations on the iconic moments of the classic Star Trek films. Other than those elements, however, the film offers nothing else that would attract the viewer’s attention and thus strengthen the effectiveness of those moments. If with the new Star Wars Abrams sponsored the creation of great fan fiction, which inventively varied, overturned, updated and enriched the canon, Star Trek Into Darkness is a prime example of sloppy fanfiction that merely varies its template in a non-conceptual way, but does not bring anything new or independently functional into it. We could theoretically be thankful that Star Trek has thus paradoxically become a frightening example from which the folks at Disney learned and therefore entrusted only the first of the new sequels to Abrams. The second Star Trek showed that Abrams is great at creating new and clever variations of old worlds, but he unfortunately does not know what to do with them the second time around. (16/12/2016)

Massive disappointment from J.J. Abrams, the first time ever. Effective eye candy, but it didn’t bring me any pleasure at all. The story is told so sloppily that I actually don’t know what it was about. Everything is ancillary to the glossiness and the pace – before the dust can settle after a twist, there comes another twist, and everything is now different; the movie won’t allow you to understand that turn of events because the plot never goes very deep. Important decisions that would need hours if not days of pondering here are made in a few microseconds. Just whoosh here, whoosh there, it doesn’t matter after all. At its most basic, from one scene to the next, it does work (you can follow the short-term motivations of the characters), but who wanted to do what long-term is something that I’m unable to put together and I fear it simply doesn’t make any sense; not even a bit. The fact that everyone speaks in dull one-liners doesn’t help either. The second Star Trek cheered me up a little only by the end, when it managed to arouse some emotions (I loved the first one, though), but it took me only a few seconds to realise that nothing had really happened, and I guessed exactly the gimmick the movie will use next to reach its nonconflicting goal. So, overall, I'm quite bitter. A film with a very charismatic villain played very charismatically by a very charismatic actor until you realise you don’t know anything about him and you only remember a couple of psychopathic grimaces doesn’t deserve a higher rating. (06/06/2013)