- Location: Town Square 12 Cine
- Quick quiz: in how many scenes did Ricardo Montalban and William Shatner meet face-to-face in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan? Now the same question for Leonard Nimoy and Montalban. As you have no doubt surmised, the answer to both of these questions is zero. Kirk and Spock were never in the same room as Khan in that film, by far the best offering of the Trek franchise, forcing much of the tension to be exclusively psychological and nearly all of the action to involve starships and strategy. This may seem like a point of trivia, but in fact it is an excellent illustration of the most fundamental problem with the new Star Trek series. In the new film, Star Trek: Into Darkness, the characters have to occupy the same spaces because the default mode of conflict resolution involves punching and/or shooting each other. There's no intellectual room reserved here for clever navigational gambits or the quoting of Herman Melville. In effect, J.J. Abrams has transformed the old Trek universe, an often inexpertly constructed vehicle for simple and compelling lessons in moral philosophy, into a precisely formed, yet overwhelmingly mindless, fistfight-laden action-fest.
- The plot of Star Trek: Into Darkness is basically an excuse for Kirk (Chris Pine) and company to battle a devious enemy known as...what was his name, John Harrison? Okay, it's obviously Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose voice is as deep as ever even if he is a little more British than he used to be. Perhaps needless to say, the entire crew from the first film is back. As in the previous installment, Spock (Zachary Quinto) and McCoy (Karl Urban) are generally well-represented, while the rest of the crew (Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin) at least manage not to embarrass themselves. As before, Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) and the older version of Spock (Leonard Nimoy) lend some gravitas to various situations, while the addition of Carol Marcus (Alice Eve) is largely ignorable. The sole positive addition to the series is instead her father, Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller), whose monomaniacal pursuit of security facilitates Khan's escape in the first place.
- There are other details having to do with volcanoes, Tribbles, and Klingons (oh my!), but let's just get right to the point. The best parts of Star Trek: Into Darkness are those that recall far better films, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, and, yes, Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. This film pales in comparison to all of those, naturally, but at least the references generally brought a smile to my face, with the exception of a faux death scene that made a mockery of the most poignant moment in the Trek filmography. The rest of the film is little more than the aforementioned conglomeration of droll action sequences combined with some of the worst tendencies of modern action films, including tedious post-9/11 motifs and the villain's "getting captured on purpose" plan. There are also some serious plot inconsistencies, mostly involving the wildly varying effectiveness of transporters, but honestly such issues are fewer in number and magnitude than in Abrams' first Star Trek film. The bottom line is that this is a work without a single original thought or reason to exist beyond that the second original Star Trek film also famously starred Khan. It's a sign that the series is not-so-boldly going precisely where it has gone before, but in a much less memorable, creative, and inspired fashion.
- There are a bunch of references to Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan including Khan's ribbed jacket, some musical cues, and Spock yelling KHAAAN!
