Star Trek Into Darkness - 3 stars

This is going to be a tough review to write.  There is a lot I can say about the new Star Trek movie, but I don't want to spoil the surprises.  The less you know about it going in, the more fun you will have.  Sometime next week I will post another review where I will get into more detail about what I liked and what I didn't like about it.  Despite my 3 star review, I had quite a few problems with the script.

In 2009's Star Trek, we were introduced to the new crew.  J. J. Abrams rebooted the franchise, but using time travel he was able to say this story takes place in the same universe as the original Star Trek, just in a different timeline.  This gives him license to write his own stories without worrying about official Star Trek cannon.  He can have characters do whatever he wants and tell whatever stories he wants.  So why did he have to go and ... no, not going to get into that now.

The movie begins with Kirk and McCoy running from some kind of tribal natives.  Kirk stole something from their temple, and the natives are throwing spears at them (very reminiscent of Raiders of the Lost Ark).  Why did Kirk steal their sacred artifact?  We aren't told, and he ends up leaving it behind to distract the natives.  Kirk and McCoy end up jumping off a cliff into the ocean, which works fine because the laws of physics don't apply when the script demands it.  Sorry, but I'm getting tired of movies that have the hero jump off a cliff or a bridge (Skyfall) and just because they land in water, they survive.  No, if you fall from that high, landing in water is like landing on concrete.

Anyway, I digress.  The reason they are on that planet is to stop a volcano from erupting, which would kill the entire civilization (as in all Star Trek, the entire population of a planet lives withing a 50 mile radius).  The people are primitive and have no knowledge of space travel or other worlds, so it would violate the prime directive to let them see the ship.  But Spock is stuck in the volcano and they need to beam him out, so Kirk violates the prime directive and saves Spock.  No problem with that, it's typical for Kirk to do something like that.  And it nicely sets up some conflict between the characters.  Rather than thank Kirk for saving his life, Spock is upset that Kirk violated the prime directive. 

The plan seems very poorly thought out.  They really didn't know that the shuttle and the cable wouldn't be able to handle the heat from the volcano?  It's surprising that Spock couldn't think of a better plan.  And there is a lot of talk about how they aren't supposed to interfere with the planet's destiny, yet no one mentions that stopping the volcano is exactly what they were doing. 

Soon we will meet the villain of the movie, the terrorist John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch).  Harrison is angry about something, and he wants to punish the federation.  First he destroys a Starfleet building in London, then he shows up in San Francisco and opens fire on a room full of high ranking officers (reminded me of Godfather 3). 

From there, the plot is basically about Kirk and company going to capture Harrison and bring him to justice.  I enjoyed the setup and the conflict between the characters.  The funniest bit was about Spock and Uhura having a fight.  You will remember from the first movie that the two were dating.  Seeing a Vulcan try to understand an angry woman is hilarious. 

Chris Pine is good as Kirk (even though he is a little too young for the part), and Zachary Quinto makes a very good Spock.  Karl Urban makes a good Bones, but I got a little tired of him in this movie.  He's kind of a one note character, and his crankyness gets old if it's used too much.  Simon Pegg is a very different Scotty, but he's great comic relief.  The character I really don't like is Anton Yelchin's Chekov.  His accent bugged me.

The best character in the movie was John Harrison.  If you haven't seen the BBC series Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson, check it out.  Cumberbatch is a very exciting actor, and he is a joy to watch.  Harrison is a mystery in this movie.  At first, he's plotting these attacks without doing or saying much.  Then he's captured, and you get the feeling he wanted to be captured.  Standing in his cell, he is reminiscent of Hannibal Lector.  You get the impression he has Kirk and crew exactly where he wants them at all times. 

One of my complaints is that Cumberbatch is not on screen enough.  He is built up to be this terrifying villain, and the movie builds to this point where it feels like the real fight is about to begin, and then it's over after 5 minutes.  It felt a bit anticlimactic. 

The movie throws in a lot of references to the original TV series and movies.  I think they relied on that too much.  A few references here and there are fun, and only the most hard core Trek fans will catch them all.  But at some point Abrams and company need to have confidence to tell their own original story, without trying to rehash previous Star Trek plots.  By the end I felt like I had seen all this before.  There were also a lot of plot holes that could have been fixed if they had spent a little more time with the script. 

That being said, I still enjoyed the movie.  It was a lot of fun, and you don't have to be a Trekkie to enjoy it.  And Peter Weller plays an admiral.  It's nice to see Robocop in a movie again.