Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Expected more

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Another great movie from the Star Trek stable, one of the better ones we think. Great story line, well acted and phenomenal SFX. Sit back, turn the lights down, turn up the surround sound and enjoy. Would we watch it again? absolutely, probably many times.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is the second film in the rebooted STAR TREK series, following on from the lacklustre first. The good news is that this one's a definite improvement, a straight-up action flick with a fast pace that takes your mind off the less-than-impressive moralising and character development of the cast. It starts off very well indeed, with Kirk and co. at the mercy of an unknown mega-villain running rings around Star Fleet, before turning into a typical outer space adventure in the second half.As an ensemble production, few of the cast get a real look-in, with an annoyingly 'heroic' Chris Pine failing to get the viewer on side (he was much better in UNSTOPPABLE) as Kirk and Zachary Quinto a bit stiff as Spock. Simon Pegg is better in his usual comic relief role (the same as his one in the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE franchise) while newcomer Alice Eve is a bit too chipper. It's left to the old pros like Bruce Greenwood and Peter Weller to really excel, although Benedict Cumberbatch is fine too as the villain of the piece, lit to look very much like an alien. Watch out for a great little cameo late on. The rest is a mash-up of heroism, endless CGI spectacle, and ordinary plotting.

While it was not a perfect series (William Shatner's overacting, less than great production values and an iffy Season 3), the original 'Star Trek' series was a genre landmark and hugely influential and ground-breaking, also a mostly great series in its own right especially for the characters, the relationships and Leonard Nimoy's Spock.The films based on the original series were a mixed bag. A few great ones with 'The Wrath of Khan', 'The Voyage Home' and 'The Undiscovered Country', one in-between film with 'The Search for Spock' and disappointments with 'The Motion Picture' and particularly 'The Final Frontier'. There were ten 'Star Trek' films before this 2009 reboot, four being based on the 'Next Generation series where the only outstanding one was 'First Contact'. 'Generations to me was another in-between film and 'Insurrection' and 'Nemesis' were two other particularly problematic ones.Don't think 'Star Trek Into Darkness' is as good as the generally positive critical reception makes out, despite some really impressive elements (more so than those who dislike the film have made out), it is a heavily flawed film and does disappoint as a 'Star Trek' film. At the same time, as a film on its own 'Star Trek Into Darkness' is pretty decent but admittedly it could have been much better. While the disappointment is understandable and personally concur with a lot of the criticisms, it is nowhere near as bad as 'Star Trek' fans who hated it have said, coming from a subjective person this is not a 1/10 film.Visually, the film mostly looks great. The special effects are mainly fantastic and leave one in awe, while there is audacious and suitably moody cinematography and atmospheric lighting.Michael Giacchino delivers another winner of a music score, don't remember ever being disappointed by this man. Sure it is familiar, but it fits very well with the film and its mood and is unmistakable Giacchino, a beautiful score to listen to and has a lot of atmosphere.Where 'Star Trek Into Darkness' scores highly is in the action, it is staged in a way that generates a huge amount of thrilling excitement, tension and suspense. It's well shot too, and JJ Abrams knows how to deliver on the action and spectacle. The sound effects have a lot of authenticity.Regarding the story, 'Star Trek Into Darkness' evoked mixed reactions from me. It is rich in atmosphere and has some thrilling moments and truly exciting action, while the interplay between Kirk and Spock is brilliantly written and makes one feel quite nostalgic. The casting is in crucial parts bang on with some great performances. Chris Pine has garnered mixed reactions, to me he was more relaxed here and has a charisma that commands the screen.Zachary Quinto once again nails it as Spock, with huge shoes to fill, capturing perfectly what was so iconic about the character in the first place. Karl Urban is suitably cantankerous, Zoe Saldana is sexy and fiery and Leonard Nimoy makes a moving cameo. Best of all is Benedict Cumberbatch, who is sensational as Khan and is the best thing about the film, Khan is also the most interesting and most developed character and Cumberbatch gives him menacing intensity and sympathetic melancholy, a character who you fear but in some way understand his point of view.'Star Trek Into Darkness' has a lot of faults though. The script has some clunky moments, has comedy that really doesn't gel and is not very funny and fails to provoke much thought or have much depth, some of it feels dumbed down. Character development, something that 'Star Trek' at its best was particularly good in, is mostly lacking, outside of Khan, most of the cast actually are criminally underused and are very bland in personality (Urban was fine but was too much in the background), Alice Eve is little more than a window dressing plot device that felt incidental to the story and Simon Pegg (who is very funny in other roles) is irritating comic relief.Despite some good moments, the story was very problematic. That it has a lot of inconsistencies and continuity errors is just one problem, more of an issue was that some of it was in need of much more clarity because some of it is convoluted and under-explored, the big reveal is clumsy and far too obvious and the romance is shoe-horned, forced, underdeveloped and completely unnecessary.Although most of the film was well made, a few of the techniques that distracted a lot in 'Star Trek' (2009), especially the lens flares, still distract and look cheap. Abrams does action and spectacle well, but fails on what is a large part of 'Star Trek's' appeal when at its best which is the writing and the characterisation, both problematically executed and robs the film of heart and soul. The film is all big and noisy, but the brains and heart are missing.Overall, nowhere near greatness but hardly the franchise's darkest hour. 6/10 Bethany Cox

I know before to watch this movie what type of silliness I would expect but it is merely a product with the right name on it to captures long time fanatics and to try to generate new ones. So the only things in common with the original are the names and characters; nothing about the script belongs to Star trek. Actually the characters like the Doctor and captain Kirk look more like cartoonish versions. Star trek is not an action story "per se" is more in the psychological human factors hand on hand with the advances of the technologies and the curiosity of what could be up there in the outer space saga. Sharing and learn stuff with other civilizations. In this episode is all about militarization, cold war; egotists, explosions and fist fights! lots of them! Incredible. The reactions of the characters are too simple and basic human responses. Kirk acts as a silly teenager couple of times.. Also the approach is "too North American" too "gringo" A very ugly San Francisco by the way. Could be choose to recreate a new city..-Remember the big notice and commotion about the NY twin towers incident well, here you ll see half of S Francisco smashed by a giant space ship with thousands or millions of people dying and immersed in the ultimate horror in a devastated city...or dozens of the crew members (of course NEVER EVER an important character) dying in the outer space flying away from the Enterprise...nothing of that seem important; material that you can make several stories and movies about it but all was taken SO light.The special effects are OK, so there s no over use or abuse of its. The Enterprise inside etc looks pretty good. The customs are pretty good. The pace of the movie is right regarding an action movie. The main actor does not look right for the kirk character is for me like this actor that does the character of James Bond in the lasts 007 movies.