Star Trek Into Darkness

As much as I liked Abrams' 2009 re-boot of the Star Trek series, I liked this second installment better. I think that's because there was less of an obligation to fill up back-story, and more ability to go deeper both into plot, and into the emotions of these new, younger versions of the characters we now (re) know. Add to that Benedict Cumberbatch makes a complex and compelling villain, even if the character does borrow from other sources, including Rutger Hauer in "Blade Runner".

The humor is funny, the emotional scenes have a real impact, the battles are exciting, the acting is excellent, the plot twists are clever, and the more epic 'big' moments are really effective.

There are flaws; some plot twists can be seen coming a mile off, there are a few painful cheats or jumps in logic, and a handful of too-easy coincidences. But for a big summer blockbuster this has more smarts, style, punch and humanity than most.

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")

Saw this in 3D theatre in 2013. ReWatched it again recently. Still good entertaining film after 13 years.

This Trek film is made after Cumberbatch is famous for Sherlock. Here, he's true scene stealer, giving powerful performance, unlike his recent big budget films. Script has plot holes & copies from original outdated 1982 Wrath of Khan flick. Those complaining "why Latino not cast as Khan" forget original Khan (Ricardo) & his crew were all costumed BLONDE, his crew all white actors, Ricardo & crew portray whites - not Latino. Khan's full name is Mongloid Asian- not India nor Latino. FOCUS on one's ACTING instead of race in any film. An Asian actor could've played Khan here. There's very good American Asian actors & many overseas accomplished Chinese, Japanese, Korean, ASEAN bilingual actors but NONE are cast in big budget Hollywood films or series, incl animation, ESP ICONIC lead roles, even after w* *ke movement. Michelle Yeoh's recently created "Empress" character in "Discovery" & 2025 "Section 13" TV streaming flicks are low budget & poor script quality; cardboard character & waste of her talent. She's not cast as iconic Trek character nor creating unique memorable one like Borg Queen.

Back to this film - there's solid plot & script, cast chemistry, action, inventive quality sci fi, music & direction - ALL requisite elements for good film. Main Trek cast & guest leads give good performances. Spock transforming into action type mode is a big stretch but excusable bc of previous 2009 Trek film. This film has action throughout but not excessively. To the many Critics despising action in Star Trek, desiring "talkie" film: see MANY DULL NO action low budget "talking" Trek films released, esp 1st 1980 "Star Trek The Motion Picture." View all following "curing insomnia" 1980s-1996 no action talking Trek films. All slow paced, cheap production flicks even @ their release dates. All outdated few yrs after release.

THIS film script has humor that's well delivered. One good character / actor exits but it's key to plot. Ending is bit predictable but with twist.

Remaining fun & entertaining after 13 YEARS is TRUE TEST of ANY film. Enjoy it!

Boldly going where no man (or woman or gender fluid) has gone before, climb aboard the Enterprise and let it fly and soar, as old friends gather, reunite, off to battle and to fight, strange new worlds, civilisations to explore.

A renegade from the future rewrites his score, it's as if he wandered through another door, it's a better incarnation, riven through with lamentation, leaves Ricardo full of wrath just like before.

Embrace it or you'll lose it, change is good, just let your imagination take you away, it's only a story after all.

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!