REVIEW: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS A surprising first in my seven years of writing this column After going back through all of the reviews I’ve done in the past seven years, I did not find one instance where I actually gave back-to-back movies a grade of an A- of higher. That is going to change after watching Star Trek Into Darkness this week. Star Trek Into Darkness is about the crew of the Enterprise finding an unstoppable, one-man killing machine within their own organization and being forced to stop him. Having to go to a war-zone area in order to retrieve this person, the crew risks not only their lives, but the possibility of starting a war with the Klingons as well. A visually stunning and equally as entertaining film, Star Trek Into Darkness is easily the best in the storied franchise’s history. Excellent casting, superb direction and an intriguing storyline makes this movie one of the best of the year. I’m not even a big Star Trek fan. Personally, I grew up more of a Star Wars fan than Star Trek. And though I liked Star Trek: The Next Generation, I’ve never really had the urge to get involved with the crazy, cult-like culture of Trekkies. However, if there was a movie in the entire 40-plus-year span of the franchise’s existence that would make me become more of a fan, it’s definitely Star Trek Into Darkness. The cast was stellar (pun definitely intended). Chris Pine was much better as Captain Kirk in this one than in the 2009 movie, Star Trek. His character has finally evolved into more of the leader we expect with Kirk, and is overall a really good Kirk. Zachary Quinto is solid as Spock, with Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg and John Cho each adding a nice touch to the crew. The best additions to the cast are Peter Weller and Benedict Cumberbatch. Any time the original RoboCop himself is in a movie, it automatically gets a half-point alone in my grading system. My sister has talked ravingly about Benedict Cumberbatch for about two years now, but this was the first time I’ve seen anything with him in it. Get ready, folks. If Hollywood producers have any sense and want an awesome bad guy in their movie, they need to go and get Cumberbatch. His take on the legendary Khan character would make Ricardo Montalban want to go back and re-do how he portrayed the character. I like both, so don’t get me wrong, but Cumberbatch stole the entire movie here. J.J. Abrams can seemingly do no wrong at this point in his career. His last film before Star Trek Into Darkness was Super 8, which was a very under-rated movie. His next project is the highly-anticipated Star Wars: Episode VII, currently projected for theaters in 2015. If his work on the Star Trek franchise is any indication of things to come, then you can bet the farm that the newest Star Wars movie will be nothing short of excellent. Star Trek fan or not, you’ll want to check out this latest installment. The visual effects alone are worth buying a Blu-Ray player, and the pacing of the movie will keep you heavily involved throughout its two-hours-and-fifteen-minute runtime. So for this rare occasion of me giving consecutive movies a grade of A- or higher, it’s a safe to say that I recommend Star Trek Into Darkness to anyone and everyone. Star Trek Into Darkness (PG-13) ..................... A-
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 18:07:35 +0000
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