Star Trek into Darkness. (12A.)
Directed by J.J. Abrams.
Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban and Simon Pegg. 132 mins
When this came out on cinemas back in May, fresh in the wake of Iron Man 3, the summer of 2013 still seemed laden with promise. Though it didn’t deliver disappointments quite as crushing as last summer’s Prometheus or Dark Knight Rises, it was to be a bleak summer. It seems to me that the best movies were those that irritated rather than pandered to their core fan base.
Trekkers were enraged by Abrams’ rejigging of themes from The Wrath of Khan, a sacred text in their world, while the Marvel contingent were equally up in arms at Shane Black’s sharp and funny updating of the classic Iron Man adversary Manderin. Conversely at the end of Man Of Steel all the fanboys were in raptures about how many stars they were going to give it on their blogs while the general public were wearily commenting that the fight scenes went on a bit and were a bit repetitive. The one man I met who loved the film was a comic book fan and pinball obssessive – which given that the film’s last hour was a rota of people in costumes being pinging into large buildings, probably makes him the film’s target audience.
Anyway,there comes the point in the latest Star Trek, as it must in all Star Treks, where the warp drive has gone, the shields are down and the Starship Enterprise is totally unprotected. There is also a more atypical scene where Kirk admonishes Bones for an excessive use of metaphor but I will boldly go into weak metaphor territory by saying that this film totally disarmed my critical faculties, leaving me defenceless to its slightly dopey charms. There have been smarter summer blockbusters, more spectacular summer blockbusters, wittier summer blockbusters but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a summer blockbuster as purely and shamelessly entertaining as this.
In 2009 the first of these rebooted adventures of the enterprise crew used the tagline, “This is not your father’s Star Trek,” but it is, it really is. Sure, it is delivered at a helter-skelter pace with remarkably convincing special effects and constant action, like any other modern film entertainment, but at its heart is the same dynamic as any of the 60s TV episodes. It is still Captain J.F. Kennedy expanding his new Frontier across the universe with his multicultural crew. The plot for Into Darkness touches on many contemporary issues with various homilies about the use of drones, how we create our own terrorist threats and the need to preserve codes of behaviour during wartime.
In any other context such earnest self-righteousness might grate but here it comes across as infectious optimism. The title must be ironic or a piece of misdirection. Why is it called Into Darkness, when it is entirely without edge or cynicism? Its journey is in the other direction. Abrams’ trademark use of lens flare in almost every scene suggests a future without stain or murk, where every surface gleams.
The posters are flagging up the presence of Cumberbatch as the enigmatic villain John Harrison and he’s decent enough (though, and this could count as a spoiler, by the end you may think that his calm, calculating restraint is wrong for his role) but really it is the rest of the cast that make the film. Any misgiving about Pine’s Kirk or Pegg’s Scotty are wiped away here; this new gang now have as much claim to their roles as Shatner and Nimoy.
Star Trek has been chugging along in its various incarnations for some five decades. There have been some high points and some low points but mostly it’s been much of a much of a muchness. This may be the perfect expression of Gene Roddenberry’s creation.
Directed by J.J. Abrams.
Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban and Simon Pegg. 132 mins
When this came out on cinemas back in May, fresh in the wake of Iron Man 3, the summer of 2013 still seemed laden with promise. Though it didn’t deliver disappointments quite as crushing as last summer’s Prometheus or Dark Knight Rises, it was to be a bleak summer. It seems to me that the best movies were those that irritated rather than pandered to their core fan base.
Trekkers were enraged by Abrams’ rejigging of themes from The Wrath of Khan, a sacred text in their world, while the Marvel contingent were equally up in arms at Shane Black’s sharp and funny updating of the classic Iron Man adversary Manderin. Conversely at the end of Man Of Steel all the fanboys were in raptures about how many stars they were going to give it on their blogs while the general public were wearily commenting that the fight scenes went on a bit and were a bit repetitive. The one man I met who loved the film was a comic book fan and pinball obssessive – which given that the film’s last hour was a rota of people in costumes being pinging into large buildings, probably makes him the film’s target audience.
Anyway,there comes the point in the latest Star Trek, as it must in all Star Treks, where the warp drive has gone, the shields are down and the Starship Enterprise is totally unprotected. There is also a more atypical scene where Kirk admonishes Bones for an excessive use of metaphor but I will boldly go into weak metaphor territory by saying that this film totally disarmed my critical faculties, leaving me defenceless to its slightly dopey charms. There have been smarter summer blockbusters, more spectacular summer blockbusters, wittier summer blockbusters but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a summer blockbuster as purely and shamelessly entertaining as this.
In 2009 the first of these rebooted adventures of the enterprise crew used the tagline, “This is not your father’s Star Trek,” but it is, it really is. Sure, it is delivered at a helter-skelter pace with remarkably convincing special effects and constant action, like any other modern film entertainment, but at its heart is the same dynamic as any of the 60s TV episodes. It is still Captain J.F. Kennedy expanding his new Frontier across the universe with his multicultural crew. The plot for Into Darkness touches on many contemporary issues with various homilies about the use of drones, how we create our own terrorist threats and the need to preserve codes of behaviour during wartime.
In any other context such earnest self-righteousness might grate but here it comes across as infectious optimism. The title must be ironic or a piece of misdirection. Why is it called Into Darkness, when it is entirely without edge or cynicism? Its journey is in the other direction. Abrams’ trademark use of lens flare in almost every scene suggests a future without stain or murk, where every surface gleams.
The posters are flagging up the presence of Cumberbatch as the enigmatic villain John Harrison and he’s decent enough (though, and this could count as a spoiler, by the end you may think that his calm, calculating restraint is wrong for his role) but really it is the rest of the cast that make the film. Any misgiving about Pine’s Kirk or Pegg’s Scotty are wiped away here; this new gang now have as much claim to their roles as Shatner and Nimoy.
Star Trek has been chugging along in its various incarnations for some five decades. There have been some high points and some low points but mostly it’s been much of a much of a muchness. This may be the perfect expression of Gene Roddenberry’s creation.
