STAR TREK – INTO DARKNESS (132 minutes)
Directed by J.J. Abrams
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana
Four years is a long time to wait for a movie sequel – the whole of the original Star Trek television series only ran for three years before cancellation in 1969 – but boy, oh boy, was it worth the wait.
With Star Trek Into Darkness, which hits New Zealand cinemas on May 9 (one week before it is released in the US), director JJ Abrams has caught lightening in a bottle for a second time in the same way Gene Rodenberry had a hit on his hands with Star Trek The Next Generation following the original series.
Abrams, and his team of writers, have taken all of the ingredients that made 2009’s Star Trek reboot film the most successful in the 47-year-old franchise’s history and amped them up for Star Trek Into Darkness like George Lucas amped the original Star Wars trilogy up with The Empire Strikes Back in 1980.
In the case of Star Trek Into Darkness Abrams, and his talented company and crew, take many beloved aspects of all five live action Star Trek series and 11 films and throw them up into the air to see where they land.
This film melds characters and situations from one Star Trek television show with ideas and concepts from a completely different series with another crew to come up with something fresh which is at times funny and at times moving.
The film opens on an alien world where the undercover crew of the USS Enterprise are trying to save a primitive race from a volcanic eruption without alerting the natives to their presence.
The Prime Directive prevents Starfleet officers from interfering in the normal development of non-space-faring races and Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is constantly reminded of the rules by first officer Spock (Zachary Quinto).
The opening scenes could have been directly lifted from the original series and remind those of us who remember it just how wonderful it was.
When it all goes wrong Kirk finds himself back on Earth explaining himself to Admiral Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), the previous captain of the Enterprise as the unthinkable happens.
Terrorists, from within Starfleet’s ranks, strike at a Starfleet facility in London and then San Francisco. The Enterprise is dispatched into enemy territory, Klingon space, to track down perpetrator John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and bring him to justice.
The story is edge of the seat stuff, with plenty for the average film goer to enjoy. But Trekkies or Trekkers, I never know which is best, will find plenty of blatant and oblique references to previous stories – even though Abrams films are set in an alternative universe.
There’s plenty of references to the original show and films, although to say which episodes will give too much of the plot away, and the film also draws on a major plot point from seasons six and seven on Star Trek Deep Space Nine in which one of the space stations crew was recruited into the shadowy black ops Section 31 of Starfleet. In fact much of the plot revolves around Section 31, a sort of futuristic FBI, bringing Star Trek’s film franchise into a post 9/11 world.
