Star Trek Into Darkness

While it was not a perfect series (William Shatner's overacting, less than great production values and an iffy Season 3), the original 'Star Trek' series was a genre landmark and hugely influential and ground-breaking, also a mostly great series in its own right especially for the characters, the relationships and Leonard Nimoy's Spock.

The films based on the original series were a mixed bag. A few great ones with 'The Wrath of Khan', 'The Voyage Home' and 'The Undiscovered Country', one in-between film with 'The Search for Spock' and disappointments with 'The Motion Picture' and particularly 'The Final Frontier'. There were ten 'Star Trek' films before this 2009 reboot, four being based on the 'Next Generation series where the only outstanding one was 'First Contact'. 'Generations to me was another in-between film and 'Insurrection' and 'Nemesis' were two other particularly problematic ones.

Don't think 'Star Trek Into Darkness' is as good as the generally positive critical reception makes out, despite some really impressive elements (more so than those who dislike the film have made out), it is a heavily flawed film and does disappoint as a 'Star Trek' film. At the same time, as a film on its own 'Star Trek Into Darkness' is pretty decent but admittedly it could have been much better. While the disappointment is understandable and personally concur with a lot of the criticisms, it is nowhere near as bad as 'Star Trek' fans who hated it have said, coming from a subjective person this is not a 1/10 film.

Visually, the film mostly looks great. The special effects are mainly fantastic and leave one in awe, while there is audacious and suitably moody cinematography and atmospheric lighting.

Michael Giacchino delivers another winner of a music score, don't remember ever being disappointed by this man. Sure it is familiar, but it fits very well with the film and its mood and is unmistakable Giacchino, a beautiful score to listen to and has a lot of atmosphere.

Where 'Star Trek Into Darkness' scores highly is in the action, it is staged in a way that generates a huge amount of thrilling excitement, tension and suspense. It's well shot too, and JJ Abrams knows how to deliver on the action and spectacle. The sound effects have a lot of authenticity.

Regarding the story, 'Star Trek Into Darkness' evoked mixed reactions from me. It is rich in atmosphere and has some thrilling moments and truly exciting action, while the interplay between Kirk and Spock is brilliantly written and makes one feel quite nostalgic. The casting is in crucial parts bang on with some great performances. Chris Pine has garnered mixed reactions, to me he was more relaxed here and has a charisma that commands the screen.

Zachary Quinto once again nails it as Spock, with huge shoes to fill, capturing perfectly what was so iconic about the character in the first place. Karl Urban is suitably cantankerous, Zoe Saldana is sexy and fiery and Leonard Nimoy makes a moving cameo. Best of all is Benedict Cumberbatch, who is sensational as Khan and is the best thing about the film, Khan is also the most interesting and most developed character and Cumberbatch gives him menacing intensity and sympathetic melancholy, a character who you fear but in some way understand his point of view.

'Star Trek Into Darkness' has a lot of faults though. The script has some clunky moments, has comedy that really doesn't gel and is not very funny and fails to provoke much thought or have much depth, some of it feels dumbed down. Character development, something that 'Star Trek' at its best was particularly good in, is mostly lacking, outside of Khan, most of the cast actually are criminally underused and are very bland in personality (Urban was fine but was too much in the background), Alice Eve is little more than a window dressing plot device that felt incidental to the story and Simon Pegg (who is very funny in other roles) is irritating comic relief.

Despite some good moments, the story was very problematic. That it has a lot of inconsistencies and continuity errors is just one problem, more of an issue was that some of it was in need of much more clarity because some of it is convoluted and under-explored, the big reveal is clumsy and far too obvious and the romance is shoe-horned, forced, underdeveloped and completely unnecessary.

Although most of the film was well made, a few of the techniques that distracted a lot in 'Star Trek' (2009), especially the lens flares, still distract and look cheap. Abrams does action and spectacle well, but fails on what is a large part of 'Star Trek's' appeal when at its best which is the writing and the characterisation, both problematically executed and robs the film of heart and soul. The film is all big and noisy, but the brains and heart are missing.

Overall, nowhere near greatness but hardly the franchise's darkest hour. 6/10 Bethany Cox

After violating the Prime Directive of the Federation interfering with the primitive inhabitants of Planet Nibiru, saving their lives from a volcanic eruption and exposing the Enterprise to them to save Spock (Zachary Quinto), Captain James Kirk (Chris Pine) is summoned by Admiral Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) and loses the command of the Enterprise.

Meanwhile, a Starfleet facility in London is bombed and the high-command has a meeting where the identity of the responsible, the former agent John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), is disclosed. However, Harrison attacks the commanders; kills Spike and flees to Kronos, the land of the Klingons. Admiral Alexander Marcus (Peter Weller) assigns Kirk to kill Harrison and brings seventy-two torpedoes to the Enterprise to accomplish the mission. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scotty (Simon Pegg) refuses to receive the weapons and Pavel Chekov (Anton Yelchin) is relocated to his position and Dr. Carol Wallace (Alice Eve), who is a science officer specialized in weapons, joins the Enterprise crew. When they arrive in Kronos, they are attacked by Klingons but out of the blue, Harrison kills the Klingons and surprisingly surrenders to Kirk after knowing that the torpedoes are on board of the Enterprise. Then he discloses that he is Khan, a superhuman that was awakened by Marcus from a cryogenic pod to prepare the star-ships with powerful weapons for a war against the Klingons. When the Enterprise is intercepted by a mysterious starship commanded by Admiral Marcus, Kirk asks Khan to help him to save his crew.

"Star Trek into Darkness" is a great sci-fi with a good story of Kirk and his crew and a powerful villain. The good acting and direction associated to top-notch special effects make a highly entertaining movie. Surprisingly there are bad reviews in IMDb that must be ignored by those that like this franchise. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Star Trek Além da Escuridão" ("Star Trek beyond the Darkness")

Truly spectacular, one of those rare amazing, inventive and often unpredictable blockbusters. The acting was great all round, especially Cumberbatch - wow, he was superb. The direction, cinematography and visual effects were all greatly innovative and brilliant; the screenplay fun, often humorous and has a lot of heart for all its characters which are all really well developed.

The film has some cliché moments which can't be avoided often with a film this scale however they make use of them well and still pack plenty of surprises. As well as this, despite not being a proper Trekkie myself, some moments gave me goosebumps from the awesomeness from seeing the Enterprise for the first time for example, which greatly honoured the original series. J.J. Abrams' lens flares helped create more realism in a lot of the scenes despite the fact he often overuses of them.

The villain was very interesting and the development, dialogue and motivations of his character were very convincing and inventive, Cumberbatch's fantastic acting greatly helped bring this character to life. Also the way he executed his plan showed a lot more cutting edge creativity than especially most modern blockbusters, not to say it's done nearly to the same level of genius but something I haven't felt in a villain's characterisation/acting since The Dark Knight.

Overall, a mesmerising film with nice homages to the original series, one filled with heart, grace, innovation, superb characters and acting and some impressive, clever visuals and immersive 3D, one of the only times I can say that. Up there with the 2009 one, not sure which I prefer, possibly the previous one largely due to the more clever story, despite this one having a much better villain, still not sure though. Still a very strongly recommended film, may hit my top 100 simply because how much I was impressed by it. 9/10!

Golly I think my title sums up everything I wanted to say. As far as basic plot goes, there's nothing particularly new here: a psycho super being plans to kill people and blow up things while the Enterprise is, for the millionth time, "the only ship in the quadrant". This movie is very lazily written, sort of like that homework assignment you slapped together on the bus to school but with a multi zillion dollar budget. But before you transport off this page, bear in mind the film's saving grace...

There are a ton of groan-worthy, yet very effective, references to the old Star Trek universe, making this a pretty entertaining watch even though I sound like I'm slamming it harder than a shuttle craft making Emergency Landing Plan B ("B! As in BARRICADE"). That plus a ton of dazzling special effects and nonstop action prompt me to rate this movie a definite WORTHWHILE WATCH, even though my inner Trek nerd is screaming for you to avoid it like that episode "Spock's Brain".

No, this is NOT a remake of the incomparable "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982) although it does feature the characters Khan as well as Dr. Carol Marcus.

No, Khan does not show off his bulging pecs as only the late great Ricardo Montalban could do.

YES, there is a sneaky remake of the famous radiation "you'll flood the chamber" scene which is fun to watch.

YES, Chris Pine does an admirable job of playing Captain Kirk as the charmingly arrogant young captain who doesn't like to lose.

YES, Zachary Quinto does an admirable job of playing the stoic Mr Spock, and YES there is a cameo by Leonard Nimoy as the original Spock.

YES, Dr, McCoy says "Dammit Jim I'm a doctor not a ---!"

and lastly, YES, at a certain point in the movie someone does, in fact, yell: "KHAAaaAaAAAAAaaANNN!!!"

So what more needs to be said. Great popcorn flick. Fun little nods to the old Trek series. It doesn't require too many brain cells. But then again, neither does "Spock's Brain" and we still love it.

The previous Star Trek movie is a tough one to beat. It was (in my eyes) close to perfection (lens flares and all). So this movie had a tough up-hill battle ahead of it. I am happy to report that the writing, direction, cinematography and acting were all terrific. But it's not quite flawless. There are a couple of minor plot holes that distract viewer attention to some degree.

Cumberbatch is brilliant. I won't divulge any spoilers, but I will say that the throw back to the earlier movies is very very clever and well executed. The added depth we see in the characters of Kirk and Spock are icing on an already delicious cake!