It’s
been a long time since I’ve posted any movie reviews. I’d like to say it’s because I’ve been too
busy or this, that, or the other, but the fact is, I just haven’t really had
any movies I want to talk about. Until
now.
No, seriously, out of the cavalcade of movies I’ve had the
pleasure or displeasure of watching since my last review, this one became so
polarizing in my own mind that I found myself incapable of not talking about
it. So check your phasers and have your
Klingon-English travel dictionary ready, we’re going where plenty of men have
gone before…Sidewinder Reviews Presents: Star Trek Into Darkness.
I’m going
to go ahead and address this right off the bat: Colons. Star Trek: Into Darkness is correct. Star Trek Into Darkness is just bad
grammar. Even my spell check is having a
fit with it. Mr. Abrams…that should tell
you something. If spell/grammar check
calls you out on it…fix it.
Anyway, so what do we talk about here? Well, the movie has been out long enough that
I don’t think I’m going to spoil it for anyone.
With that said…if you have not seen this film and don’t want key plot
points given away, stop reading and check it out now. You have been warned.
So if I had a word to describe this movie, it would be “Redundant”. Our film kicks off with Kirk and McCoy fleeing
a race of aliens like they just wandered into an Indiana Jones flick, running
straight for a cliff while Kirk holds high some kind of golden scroll. Apparently what was supposed to be a mission
of observe and report turned into get nosy and meddle while under Kirks
command, because they were supposed to only study the very primitive aliens,
and instead Spock risks his life to stop their volcano from destroying their
civilization while Kirk exposes the presence of the Enterprise in an effort to
rescue his friend from certain death.
For some reason Admiral Pike took acception to this, or more likely to
the fact that Kirk lied on his report and Spock didn’t. I can’t help but wonder how the movie would
have been different if Kirk had told the truth in his log. But he didn’t and Starfleet takes away Kirk’s
command, giving the Enterprise back to Admiral Pike and Pike making Kirk his
first officer.
Kirk and Pike attend a special meeting of the best of the
best of Starfleet as they talk about rouge Starfleet agent named John Harrison
and his attack on a highly classified location in London. Just then Kirk figures out that this has all
been a set-up and Harrison attacks the meeting.
Kirk destroys Harrison’s ship but not before Admiral Pike is killed and
Harrison escapes. Kirk is then placed
back in the captain’s chair of the Enterprise…thus making the opening sequence
and subsequent demotion unnecessary.
The crew figure out that Harrison has fled to Kronos or Qo’noS,
depending on your source material.
Frankly I prefer the latter.
Anyway Qo’noS is the Klingon home world and any Federation presence
there may be seen as an act of war by the warrior race. Admiral Marcus argues that war with the
Klingons is inevitable and dispatch Kirk and the Enterprise to hunt Harrison
down and wipe him out with 72 brand spanking new photon torpedoes. Despite the gaping holes in these orders,
like how the Federation would ever approve of the execution of a man without a
trial or investigation, or why he needs to fire all 72 torpedoes, Kirk accepts
the mission and alienates the entire crew as he’s barking nigh unreasonable
orders. The final straw happens when Mr.
Scott resigns his position because Kirk is forcing him to take the torpedoes
without checking them out first. To be
fair, Scott has a good point since firing a torpedo that hasn’t properly been
checked could cause the entire ship to blow up.
But orders are orders.
Kirk then changes the perameters of the mission, deciding to
capture Harrison and bring him back to Starfleet for trial. A hitch arrives when the warp core to the
Enterprise suddenly malfunctions when they arrive in Klingon space, making them
sitting ducks. Kirk, Uhura, Spock and
crewmen 21 and 24 arrive on the planet and, after a brief battle, capture
Harrison when he learns the number of torpedoes aimed at him. When placed in the brig and giving a blood
sample Harrison teases Kirk with the questions that have been bugging him since
he was first dispatched. Namely why does
Admiral Marcus want this man dead, and why did he need to use all 72 torpedoes.
We’re going to take a quick mental break here because this
is where we go back into the territory of the unnecessary. While talking to new crew member and weapons
expert Dr. Carol Wallace, she explains to Kirk her plan of going off ship with
a torpedo and opening it up to see what’s inside. While explaining her plan she takes him to a
shuttle (to be used for said plan) and strips down to her underwear…for no
reason. There was no reason for her to
start changing clothes while talking TO HER CAPTAIN. The scene doesn’t lead anywhere and it’s just
a pointless bit to get the actress out of her clothes for a minute or two. Granted earlier we had Kirk getting busy with
a couple of cat girls, but that harkens back to Kirk from the previous film
with the Orion girl. This…this had to
point. As soon as she catches him
looking she tells him to turn around, but for crying out loud, why, Abrams,
why! It’s because of these shenanigans
that I have to preview these movies based on family oriented franchises before
I let my kids watch them.
Back to the show: We
discover that Harrison is in fact Khan, the seventy two torpedoes are his
fellow super humans cryogenically frozen, and that Marcus used Khan to develop
better weapons for Starfleet because Khan is apparently very savage.
Marcus appears in the U.S.S. Vengeance, Scotty returns to
save their bacon, Khan kills Marcus and takes the torpedoes that Spock blows
up, disabling the Vengeance, having removed the 72 Captain Americas, and the
fight plummets to Earth, where Kirk dies saving the ship and Spock gets angry
and chases Khan through San Francisco only to capture him because his blood can
revive Kirk.
Yeah, I rushed through that last bit because it’s time we
covered what went right and what went wrong with this flick. I won’t bust on the title and the pointless
skin because I’ve covered that. Let’s
look at this movie critically for a second.
Tone: As the title
implies, it’s a much darker Star Trek film than we’re used to. This isn’t so bad in retrospect. Star Trek has always tried to match with the
times it’s appearing in. In the 60’s it
was bright and colorful with neat and tidy endings, because that’s what we
wanted and needed and were familiar with in the 60’s. Today, things are dirtier, and to have a Star
Trek film open with a blatant act of terrorism is an unfortunate sign of the
times. The vibe of not trusting your
marching orders, and to not really know who the enemy is has become very
forefront in our culture, and this movie addresses that. However it ends on a happier note, with the
status quo reset, and the 5 year mission of exploration about to begin. The movie is about challenges; challenging what
you think you are with who you could become, challenge what you think is right against
what you are told is right, and challenging the darkness in yourself in order
to find the light at the end. In that
regard, I think this movie works really well.
Characters: The core
cast is done wonderfully. The crew of
the Enterprise I think continues to pay respect to those who came before them
as well as taking the characters in new directions. That said, Khan I think failed. Actor Benedict Cummerbach is a fantastic
actor, I love watching him work, but I don’t think his version of Khan worked
that well, but then, this is a Khan from a different timeline. Khan from the original series was a cold and
calculating, ruthless leader, not a brutal and savage hit man. I think the director took ruthless to mean
savage, but this Khan felt so different from Ricardo Montalban’s character that
they might as well have not named him Khan at all. I’ve heard complaints that having a pasty
British actor play a guy named Khan was insulting, but I don’t think that’s the
real issue. Ricardo’s Khan would quote
Milton and Melville and Shakespeare. He
was a clearly educated leader, someone you could see ruling a society. This Khan doesn’t fit with that. Maybe that was by choice, but as someone who
truly loved “Space Seed” and “The Wrath of Khan”, the switch is to jarring to
really enjoy.
Legacy: This movie
hinges around Khan for me, but if I put that aside, if I take this movie for
what it’s worth, pretend I’d never seen a single Star Trek episode or film
until the reboot, I have to ask if it’s a good movie. And it is.
It really is a good, dark, science fiction story.
Okay, one more grip:
The U.S.S. Enterprise was sitting on an ocean floor. It’s a space ship. The pressure from the ocean should have
crushed it. Don’t tell me “they had
shields up” because they were talking about beaming Spock out of the volcano
which can’t happen if the shields are up.
I know, its science fiction and I shouldn’t think too hard about it, but
come on people.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the review, and if you did, check
out some of Sidewinder Reviews other hits.
Until next time, whenever that is…enjoy the show.
Michael
