If 2009's Star Trek reboot didn't drive a stake through the heart of this long loved franchise, Into Darkness certainly finished off the job with all the subtlety of a castrated bull frustratedly ploughing through a field full of the sexiest cows he's ever seen. Don't get me wrong: if you were simply looking for an action/adventure epic and you don't care what transwarp beaming is, then you will most likely enjoy this movie. However, the smile on your face as you exit the cinema will most likely have Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek's original creator) not only spinning in his grave, but reaching out of it with his withered claw just hoping there's an ankle nearby. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh given that team Abrams have very little interest in impressing nerds like me who learned what a warp core was before hitting puberty. From the point of view of the everyday movie-goer, Into Darkness will tick a lot of boxes with its intense action sequences, casual humour and a villain who is menacing in every way possible from his dark angry appearance to his slow and often casually disturbed speech. Hollywood is often hit or miss with villains these days but in this case, I cannot fault Benedict Cumberbatch and J. J Abrams in their attempts to create an intelligent and quite clearly dangerous adversary to challenge Kirk, who seems to be having difficulty following the rules in his new role as Captain of the Enterprise. Hardly surprising since he rose to that position having not even finished studying at Starfleet Academy. Not that a disobedient Kirk is out of character or surprising. In fact, it wouldn't be Kirk without a very single-minded approach, which was often his greatest strength when faced with missions in the past. The film goes from strength to strength in terms of challenging the crew, particularly Chekov who nervously yet somehow competently faces a complete career change and Scotty who finds himself spending more time OFF the ship than he does in his beloved engine room (which by the way from the looks of things is taking up about 60% of the internal space on board the Enterprise). The romance between Spock & Uhura, introduced to us last time out, hasn't really developed into anything more meaningful. There is a brief sub-plot which centres on this and ties into Spock's struggle with controlling his emotions, which is interesting for about 5 minutes as the relationship has once again failed to match the kind of spark you likely had with your last pizza. Nevertheless it does give Abrams the opportunity to highlight Spock's emotional awareness and provides a few light-hearted laughs during a scene involving Kirk, Spock & Uhura. There's a very angry undertone to this film, not only in light of recent events but linking back further to the encounter with Nero and his band of merry Romulan time-travellers as well as the destruction of Spock's home world, Vulcan. At one point or another, everyone is angry about something, whether it be disagreements with crew mates, the threat posed by our mysterious villain John Harrison or the pursuit of good old fashioned vengeance. This is particularly evident in Kirk's aggressive behaviour, which can only seemingly be contained by Vulcan logic, which probably explains why Kirk is so keen to keep Spock by his side. This symbiotic friendship resonates through Into Darkness and becomes particularly evident throughout a blistering finale.
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