STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS

In which I finally get around to talking about the newest Star Trek movie. (Which I cannot do without spoilers - so consider this your only warning)

Ever hype a movie up so much in your head that the poor reality of it just can't compare, no matter how awesome it is?

I REALLY enjoyed Star Trek: Into Darkness. I need to watch it again, with the hype gone and the "first viewing" jitters off to the side. Because it really was awesome.

It just didn't strike me as being QUITE as awesome as I had expected.

I went to see the movie with my family the week after it came out. The night before we went to see "Into Darkness" we watched the first "new" Star Trek movie, so it would be fresh in our minds while we watched "Into Darkness." This may have been my first mistake... but I'll explain that later. It was really fun to see them back-to-back, as it were, regardless.

We'll start out with the pros, shall we?

The development of Spock's character. After all the development that went into his character in the first movie, it was really nice to see the writers not hesitate to dive right back in and make him even more three-dimensional. I also thought it was pretty awesome to see his ability to go toe-to-toe with Khan.

Benedict Cumberbatch. Whom I have grown to love as Sherlock, and was amazed by his ability to pull off Khan. I loved this villain - he was done quite spectacularly. Everything about him was excellent, from the casting of his character to his absolute brutality. I had no doubt that this character was both capable and had no qualms about carrying out his mission to attain his goals.

The action, the fast-pace, the story - all were spectacular.

The conversation between Spock, Kirk, and Uhura in the shuttle where Uhura is mad at Spock for being so willing to die in the volcano at the beginning of the movie. This segment of dialogue was very real, quite funny, and perfectly entertaining.

The continued character development of Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov - I loved that the writers gave them as much spotlight time as they did. It is hard in a movie to develop this large of a cast, but I felt they did a great job.

Bones. Bones is my favorite character. I love his cheesy one-liners. I love his perpetual scowl. I love that he's played by Eomer... er, Karl Urban. I love his friendship with Kirk. I loved Kirk's command that he stop using metaphors. Every time Bones was on the screen I was happy.

Getting the picture? I really enjoyed this movie. However, it wasn't perfect (few movies are), and here are a couple of things that hit me as being in the more "khan" LOL category:

The main negative for me in this movie was also one of the main positives. Khan. After having watched the first movie the night before, I just walked away feeling as though the stakes in "Into Darkness" weren't quite as high. In the first movie, you've got a good bad-guy, dead-set on destroying planets. And he does it, too. So you're convinced he will be able to do it again if he isn't stopped.

In the second movie, you've got a fantastic bad guy... and he's got this ship he's going to probably use for destruction... but really, all he wants are his buddies back. Even knowing that each of those other genetically altered humans is capable of everything Khan is capable of... I just didn't feel like the stakes were as high. The scale and scope of the danger weren't as grand.

Also, I was kind of hoping... that the writers would veer off track and surprise me as they had with the destruction of Vulcan in the first movie. We're in an alternate time-line, after all, they can do anything they want. I was really hoping, even as far as 3/4 of the way through the movie, that this was going to be like that. That they writers would make Khan a GOOD guy, and the Admiral the bad guy who instigated war with the Klingons, and that THAT was going to be the ultimate climax of the movie. Part of this wish, of course, is because I really, really wanted Benedict Cumberbatch to end up being a good guy... because I just love him. And because I thought it would be very clever of them to portray him as the bad guy in the previews, and then "SURPRISE!" he's not!

Alas. That's not where they went with it. And it sort of bummed me out.

Another thing I didn't love: Kirk. I liked him in movie 1. He had some rough edges to clean up, but I thought he was getting there by the end of the movie. Much to my dismay, movie 2 starts up and he is the same, irresponsible, womanizing, bratty kid from the first movie, and the only difference is his title? Really? Now, I've watched some of the old shows, and the old movies, and Kirk was popular with the ladies, to be sure, but he wasn't such a... predator about it.

I also didn't feel like we got to really see any reason WHY the crew would care about him... or that he cared about his crew all that much, so his plea for them to be spared fell a bit flat for me.

Okay, final things, and these are minor, but there were two scenes where I felt like the story or the cutting together of the scenes just didn't make much sense.

1. Kirk and Carol Marcus are on a shuttle, presumably about to go to the planet's surface to try to disarm the warhead. They have this conversation and all of a sudden the next scene she's on the planet with Bones and they're talking to Kirk on the bridge. What? So, the only purpose I can figure for the scene with them in the shuttle together was 1) to show her in her underwear, and 2) to show that she sees right through Kirk's flirting act. The first was unnecessary, the second could have been done without the random-seeming cutting of that scene.

2. Chekov, Kirk, and Scotty are running through the collapsing ship, and they fall and are dangling from a walkway railing. The next scene, they are running through engineering, apparently no worse for the wear. How did they get there?

Like I said, those are minor, but I noticed them, so they're worth mentioning. Honest Trailers will probably notice them, too.

Overall, it was a great movie, a worthy sequel. I'd own it.