Star Trek Into Darkness Review
A word of warning: this review does contain spoilers.
Hi, I watched the latest addition to the Star Trek movie franchise yesterday. In preparation, I have read only two reviews, one by SPIEGEL online (a German news website) and this rather negative one. To put it short, I liked the film very much, I loved the references to myriads of things which make up Star Trek. However, I feel compelled to say that next time Paramount hires some people who are able to write a screenplay without major plot holes.
After having said this, the opening sequence of the movie is just brilliant, Kirk, McCoy and Spock are on an away team (or shall I rather call it TOS landing party?) mission on a planet inhabited by a pre-warp mission. While Jim and Bones are doing the best they can to make their way back to the submerged Enterprise, Spock the Vulcan tries his best to stop the nearby volcano (PUN!!!!! :)) by detonating a cold-fusion bomb inside of it. Ok, things get a little heated when Spock needs to be rescued from the volcano and Kirk has to decide whether he remains true to the Federations prime directive or saves his friends life. As he is James Tiberius Kirk, he does the latter of course. The final consequences of this are that the pre-warp civilization starts to worship its new god(s) and that Spock reports Kirk's misconduct to his Federation superiors. Kirk is therefor relieved from commanding the Enterprise.
This is where the actually main storyline kicks in. The Known Human Also Named John Harriman orchestrates a terror attack at a Starfleet facility below the city of London. A lot of personnel die in the attack. Starfleet's top command staff is subsequently assembled in order to respond to the event, including Kirk (who has been demoted to commander onboard the Enterprise now under the command of Admiral Pike) and Spock. The meeting is led by Admiral Marcus who reveals that John Harriman has been one of Starfleet's best agents but seems to have recently declared war on the Federation. The meeting is then interrupted by John Harriman, who attacks the participants suddenly and viciously. Although Kirk succeeds in stopping his attack, Pike is killed.
Shortly afterwards, Kirk and Spock convince Admiral Marcus to send them (Kirk is again promoted to captain of the Enterprise) after Harriman who is said to have fled to Kronos, the Klingon homeworld (thanks, Scotty!)...
And yes, we have the "new" Klingons in the movie, we will see Kronos, and yes, Harriman is KHAN. Live with it. It is a total eye-candy feast, it is a wonderful film of which every minute is so blatantly better than each one of the TNG-movies. But here comes the big "but": the writers do not get it all together. As with the first "Star Trek" movie from 2009, they sacrifice things that so desperately need further explanations in favor of action. This film is a hell of a big multi-sensory roller-coaster ride, it is worthy its ticket money, but please Mr. Orci, Mr. Kurtzman and Mr. Lindelof, a film does not become too talky merely by including the required dialogues explaining the underlying motivations of the heroes and the likable but ruthless and utterly villain. Therefor, many topics are superficially touched.
Maybe, this is what "The Wrath Of Khan" simply looks like for the Facebook / Twitter generation. It is a good film, but it could have been better.
