20140524: SciFi Review--Star Trek into Darkness

Star Trek: into Darkness

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, PG-13, 132 minutes.  Estimated budget: 190 million USD.
2. IMDB: 7.8/10.0 from 372,150 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 87% on the meter; 90% liked it from 309,428 audience ratings.
4. Directed by: JJ Abrams.
5. Starring: Chris Pine as James Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Karl Urban as McCoy, Simon Pegg as Scott, John Cho as Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, Bruce Greenwood as Admiral Pike, Peter Weller as Admiral Marcus, Alice Eve as Carol Marcus, Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan.


2. Setup and Plot
1. In this second Star Trek film of the Abrams era, Kirk and Spock are still running the Enterprise, and are still doing it in amateurish fashion.  However, there is a lot of action, excitement, and relief when difficulties are overcome.


2. While completing the mission in the opening sequence, Kirk violates the prime directive in order to save Spock who was doing the last part of saving a new species of sentient beings.  Sigh.  Kirk loses command of the Enterprise.


3. Admiral Pike finagles getting Kirk to be his First Officer just before there is an attack on a critical Starfleet installation.  The attack leads to a high level conclave of Starfleet officers.  Kirk figures this out just before the attack, and manages to blunt (but not stop) its effects.  There are heavy losses.  Kirk gets back the Enterprise, and is ordered to find and kill the perpetrator.  His crew is given special weapons to accomplish this.


4. Kirk's quarry is traced to a deserted part of Kronos, the Klingon homeworld.  The quarry's real name is Khan who is the maximal result of a eugenics experiment done many years earlier on Earth.  Admiral Marcus (Pike's superior) had hoped to use Khan against an array of future enemies, such as the Klingons.  Khan and Marcus had a falling out, though, and the whole dynamics of the film is derived from that.


5. For the Federation to be brought back to an even keel, Marcus' vision of endless war has to be put aside, and Khan has to be contained somehow.  Just to make things for fun, Carol Marcus, the daughter of the Admiral, stows away on the Enterprise.


6. So, will the Enterprise crew be up for it?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Abrams' second attack on Star Trek.
2. Four of ten.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 For the most part, the blending of CGI with real photography was well done.  I saw why there are so many posted complaints about lens flare, however.  Some of the sets were laughably stupid looking.


2. Sound: 4/10 The often symphonic music seemed an odd choice, and only amplified my misgivings about the film.


3. Acting: 4/10 I liked the performances of Karl Urban, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, and Peter Weller quite a lot.  However those six good choices were more than offset by the miscasting of the pivotal characters Khan, Spock, Kirk, and Uhura.


4. Screenplay: 3/10  Usually, I watch action films in one sitting with no breaks whatsoever.  This property took me four days to watch, since it just did not interest me that much at any stage.  The three principal characters were all drawn as emotionally childish and short of training for their chosen profession. It seemed utterly unlikely that such incompetence could produce good results in very difficult situations.