Four years later we have the blandly titled sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, a good film that escapes the "Every Other Trek" curse, but is still lesser than the previous outing. It does manage to inject some of the allegory and philosophizing that the original missed out on, but has traded some of that efficiency and emotional resonance.
By the end of J.J. Abrams's first Star Trek film we saw James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) go from disgraced cadet to captain of the Enterprise in about a day. As Into Darkness opens we realize that perhaps he was promoted too quickly. A survey mission goes awry when Kirk saves Spock (Zachary Quinto) by violating the Prime Directive, that "unbreakable" Trek law that prevents interference with primitive space-cultures. Kirks cocky recklessness results in him being demoted and losing command of the Enterprise.
That is until Starfleet is attacked by former officer turned terrorist John Harrison (Bennidict Comberbach). After the ruble clears, Starfleet gives Kirk back the Enterprise and sends him off on a secret revenge mission to hunt down and kill Harrison, who's hiding out in Klingon space. The "kill" part irks Spock, who feels that Harrison should stand trial, and by simply killing him, Starfleet is throwing out its principles of justice because it's inconvenient to them.
After a series of major twists, the film turns into something of a political thriller, slightly reminiscent of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Just as that film was ostensibly about the political paranoia surrounding the end of the Cold War, Into Darkness is a lot to do with the moral sacrifices America has made during the War on Terror. There are callbacks to other Trek films as well, for a while, it's of interesting how Abrams is remixes bits and bites of the cannon to suit his own needs. Iconic Trek scenes are restaged with some really inventive reversals. This strategy isn't as bold as the reboot, but it never goes for simple rehashing either. It goes a bit too far at times, but it's clear that Abrams is having a lot of fun playing in his decidedly and increasingly alternate Nu-Trek universe.
All this is interspersed with big, loud action scenes that perhaps didn't need to be so big, loud or long. There are some good ones, I was particularly fascinated by the production design of the opening chase which seems to have been inspired by infrared photography, and seeing the Enterprise take a pounding is still good for a few tugs on the heart strings. But there are also a few set pieces that felt a bit airless and give us way too much time to think about those thriller aspects. I am notorious among my friends for never seeing plot-twists coming, but by the end of a big fight scene on the Klingon home world (the name of which, astute Trekkies will note, the film misspelled) I had deduced 75% of what was going to happen. The thriller works as allegory, but less so as a plot in a movie that hangs together.
Abrams's tries to cover this with the films fast pace and the strong chemistry of the cast, and it mostly works. Everyone is as charismatic as they should be and most of the jokes land, even if some cast members feel a bit more shoehorned than last time (no one ever knows what to do with Chekov). Simon Pegg's Scotty is still very likeable, Karl Urban gets more to do as Dr. McCoy. If the film has an emotional heart, it's the tense, but clearly loving relationship between Quinto and Zoë Saldaña's Uhura. This provides the film with a dynamite subplot about the way we choose to deal with our emotions, particularly where tragedy is concerned. It's in these scenes that Into Darkness almost rebottles the magic of the reboot.
In the villain department, Comberbach provides an excellent foil for Kirk, even if his character seems at the mercy of a third act trying very hard to pull off one too many twists. There's a moment near the end, when everything is barreling along at top-speed in typical Abrams fashion, where the film could have slowed down and given us an iconic show-stopper of an ending that would have had us all talking for years. But instead, it just keeps going and going until all the most interesting stuff has either been minimized or undone. Must every blockbuster end with two people hitting each other on top of a green screen set? I know the last film ended like this too, but there it felt like a primal culmination, here it feels forced.
I enjoyed Into Darkness, but notably less so than its predecessor. Good, instead of outstanding. The machine is less well oiled, and is starting to clunk, still more than enough of it works. It feels more like classic Trek, it just needs more finesse and maybe more boldness.
Grade: B
Note: I saw the film in IMAX 3D. About a quarter of the film was shot in the IMAX format which is great, but none of it was shot in 3D which isn't. The quality of the conversion was actually pretty good, but it does lessen the natural majesty that IMAX tends to convey and neither format does anything to enhance the political allegory one bit.
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