Review of Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) by Just_Me — 06 Jan 2014

I really wanted to enjoy this movie. Encouraged by Abrams and company's claims that anything could happen in this new Trek universe, I was looking forward to a new take on an old character. Instead, the movie goes out of its way to compare itself to "Wrath of Khan," to the point of using the same dialogue, and, in the end, it comes up short.

"Khan" was thrilling, suspenseful and surprising, leading to a shocking ending. "Into Darkness" ends up being a mere shadow of the original, that not only fails to thrill (because we know where its going), but carefully puts all of the pieces back the way it found them at the end, so as not to upset the audience.

It other words, it plays it safe. Too bad, because the first two thirds is actually a decent film.