Going boldly forth
DVD: Star Trek Into Darkness Reviewed by: Samantha Keogh Review made possible by: NuMetro Starring: Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Karl Urban (Bones), Simon Pegg (Scotty), Zoe Saldana (Uhura). Director: JJ Abrams
In another prequel which allows the producers to rekindle the iconic Star Trek series with young actors, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and several others reprise the roles they took in Star Trek (2009) to again boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before.
After a visit to the planet Niburu where Captain James T Kirk violates the Prime Directive by revealing himself to a primitive culture, Kirk and his crew are summoned to Earth to face court martial.
This is followed by a top-level strategy meeting where several officers are killed by an explosion set by John Harrison, a member of Starfleet. Harrison flees into hyperspace.
The crew of the Starship Enterprise is sent after him to the Klingon home world by Fleet Admiral Alexander Marcus (Peter Weller), commander-in-chief of Starfleet.
Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), a genetically-engineered super human from the past – awakened from his cryogenic sleep – is intent on rescuing his crew, who are still in stasis. The crew are held hostage by Marcus to force Harrison to develop superior weapons in preparation for a war between the Federation and the Klingons.
Harrison then reveals himself to be a younger version of Khan Noonien Singh (eventually played by Ricardo Montalbán), a genius whose wrath in the future is the subject of another film in the series. My, how the viewer must keep his temporal wits about him if he is to navigate the sequel/prequel/current adventures of Kirk and his harried band.
Khan and Marcus vie to see who is the most evil in an action flick which should satisfy the conflict lust of most Trekkies. To this critic’s mind, Cumberbatch’s supernova performance left the rest in hydrostatic equilibrium. There is no doubt he’s the baddest!
As expected, good eventually triumphs over evil. But isn’t the joy in getting there, rather than arriving?
This is the twelfth Star Trek film and a measure of its popularity is that it earned $13.5 million on its opening day in the United States and Canada and went on to become the highest-grossing film of the franchise as it opened across the world.
