Director J.J. Abrams second installment of the Star Trek adventure, Star Trek into Darkness has it all: mind blowing special effects, non-stop action, character development, a nefarious criminal, and best of all ─ you don’t even have to be a full blown Trekkie to enjoy it.
The movie starts out by showing Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and Bones (Karl Urban) high-tailing it through an alien terrain, being chased by some pasty looking extra terrestrials. Spock (Zachary Quinto) has been launched into a volcano to insert some type of freezing device which will kill the volcano and save the planet but when things go wrong, Spock must be rescued and in the process the Enterprise is revealed to the species, breaking the Prime Directive: to not alter history, or interfere with an alien culture.
Kirk is demoted and Pike (Bruce Greenwood) is reinstated as Captain of the Enterprise, but there are bigger fish to fry on planet Earth. A Federation headquarters in London has been blown up by a terrorist and Starfleet Admiral Marcus Alexander (Peter Weller) has called an emergency meeting in San Francisco of all Federation big-wigs to discuss suspect renegade Officer John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). Before Kirk realizes that the whole thing is a set up, Harrison attacks again, killing many of the Federation’s elite leaders. Harrison escapes to a distant Klingon planet, but at this point we are starting to wonder “just who is this guy?” Enough details: The man hunt is on for Harrison so prepare to go warp speed on an action packed adventure.
After the movie, I began to try to figure the crux of the plot (which made no sense), when my wife reminded me that the plot really doesn’t matter: The adventure is the crux. If you remember this going in, you are going to have a blast with this movie. All of the usual suspects are there: Scotty (Simon Pegg), Pavel Checkov (Anton Yelchin), Hikiro Sulu (John Cho), and Uhura (Zoe Zaldana). Benedict Cumberbatch, who has attracted a legion of fans from his new Sherlock Holmes on the BBC is outstanding as the bad guy and his true identity will surprise you. Gene Rodenberry would be proud of the total effort. See it.
Reviewer’s Note: I would suggest seeing J.J. Abrams prequel Star Trek before the movie in order to prime you up. I would also suggest seeing the movie in IMAX 3D, otherwise you are missing half of the fun. I will never understand why people will try to save extra two bucks by not purchasing the 3D, while spending eight dollars on a soda, when these types of movies are made for this technology.
My Rating: 5 of 5 Warp Speeds.
