Review of Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) by Jacob G — 21 May 2014

Sort of a long-winded predecessor to the 2009 reboot. I can't decide if Into Darkness is objectively worse than Star Trek, but I definitely responded more favorably to Star Trek. Perhaps because going into Star Trek I had zero expectations, thus ended up fairly pleasantly surprised. Here I was expecting a lot more and ended up kind of let down. It's a fine sort of movie, but it has a number of warts that I'm having trouble getting past.

1. Karl Urban. His attempt at acting here is befuddling for how much it is like watching someone parody the character on YouTube. Heck, an untalented, never-before-acted parody would probably deliver more subtlety and texture to the character than Urban provides. I had to do that combination cringe-lol every time he was on screen.

2. The convoluted plot is too hard to follow. In a movie like this where there is a strong villain, we don't need a deep intricate plot. Deep plots are fine... as long as they can be followed amid all the chaos. However, best to lose some of that complexity in cases like this where the plot points are likely to get lost amid explosions and lens flares. It's not so much about WHAT is going on on-screen, but trying to figure out the reasons WHY that becomes problematic.

3. Trying to give Spock too much emotion. Ok, perhaps the original series went a bit too far in de-emotionizing Spock. Then again, a part of the draw of the character were the few slight times that he allowed his human side to show. Here he's practically a bundle of emotions. This is a case where perhaps Into Darkness succeeds at factually portraying a 50% Vulcan, 50% human combo, but it results in a character that is a far cry from what makes the original Spock so endearing.

4. Speaking of Spock, the Leonard Nemoy cameo feels horrifically shoehorned in and unnecessary. What we need at the end of movie 2 in this reboot series is for young Spock to take things by the reins and prove that He Is Spock. Calling up Old Spock for a spot of instruction hardly inspires confidence.

So Into Darkness still manages to be fun, but it's in that grey area of being kind of a bad movie all at the same time. Hard to hate, hard to love.