Movie Review: Star Trek – Into Darkness

  Hello all, and welcome to my review of Star Trek: Into Darkness! 🙂

  Starring: Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Karl Urban (Bones), Simon Pegg (Scotty), John Cho (Sulu), Benedict Cumberbatch (John Harrison), Anton Yelchin (Chekov), Bruce Greenwood (Pike), Peter Weller (Marcus), Alice Eve (Carol)

Plot (taken from Fandango):

“The crew of the Starship Enterprise returns home after an act of terrorism within its own organization destroys most of Starfleet and what it represents, leaving Earth in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Capt. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) leads his people (Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoë Saldana) on a mission to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction, thereby propelling all of them into an epic game of life and death.”

Trailer:

Characters:

Chris Pine (Kirk) is an awesome Captain Kirk. At the end of the last movie, it seemed like he calmed down a bit, lol, but he’s back to breaking rules and making it look totally cool in the process. 😀

Zachary Quinto (Spock) plays an epic Spock. Totally in love with this character the first time around, with the always uber-epic Leonard Nimoy, and that hasn’t changed with Quinto’s take on him. I keep getting the feeling that this Spock, in this slightly different timeline, will have a little more of his human side showing than the original. We shall see. 🙂

Zoe Saldana (Uhura) is awesome, as always. I really like the added layer her relationship with Spock gives the storyline. You know I love romance in pretty much everything. 🙂

Karl Urban (Bones) is fun in every scene he’s in. Lol, I love all the little comments he makes.

Simon Pegg (Scotty) is another fun one. And again, I love the comments as he grumbles about this or that.

John Cho (Sulu) has another epic moment, even though he’s more of a secondary character, just like in the first movie. Lol, you don’t want to piss off this character. 🙂

Benedict Cumberbatch (John Harrison)….. Totally in love with this character too. *ugh – struggles to contain myself to avoid spoilers* Lets leave it at he’s an epic villain. And there’s a fight sequence with him that’s just beautiful! Kinda reminds me of how smoothly the villain moved in the second Hellboy movie. Really well done.

Anton Yelchin (Chekov) is another fun character. His expressions crack me up, lol.

Bruce Greenwood (Pike) is awesome. This character is a huge contrast to Captain Kirk, mainly because he’s so balanced and rule-abiding, lol. I really like the depth his interaction with Captain Kirk adds to the story.

Peter Weller (Marcus) is awesome. I haven’t seen him since Robocop. 🙂 I loved this character because it was a surprise for me. Lol, I can’t say anymore without spoilers, so that’ll have to do for now.

Alice Eve (Carol) is a character that I don’t remember as much about. I still haven’t watched the original series, and it’s been years and years since I’ve seen the older movies, so my mom had to explain her history to me. This is another cool character I’m looking forward to seeing more of in future movies.

Review:

Okay, so you all know I have some pretty massive movie biases, right?

This. Is. One. All by its onesome.

Let the gushing begin ~ it’s unavoidable, really ~ monkey brain goes wild with a full-on geek-out in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1:

OM-GOSH go see it now. Stop what you’re doing and go see it now if you haven’t. If you have, go see it again. Srsly, turn off the computer and *GO*. Just go. I’ll wait. Promise. ‘Cuz first it was all like: “BOOM!” and I was like: “Oh no you didn’t!” and then they were like “PEW-PEW-PEW!” and I was like: “Take that where the sun don’t shine!” and theeeeeennnnn they were all: “Duhn-duh-duuuuuuuuuuhhnnn!” and I was all: ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo! Fix it! FIX IT NOW DAMMIT!” Oh, you don’t know. You don’t know what IT is….. But you shall. And then you’ll be all: “NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!!!!!!!!!” Just like I was.

*Ahem, cough, cough*

Uuuhhhhhmmm…. Yeah…. I’m THAT much of a fan.

Brace yourselves. If you wanted unbiased, I’m afraid you must search elsewhere my friends. 🙂

So, with my geek-out out of my system ~~for the moment, I make no promises~~ I have to say I’m really excited about the way the timeline is changing with each movie. Even though this is technically a re-boot of the older movies, it doesn’t entirely feel like it. I can’t wait to see what they change next.

I have read other reviews where the reviewer didn’t like that they’re kind of rehashing old territory in some instances, but since I’m looking at this as a re-boot anyway, I really don’t mind at all. If anything, I like this a little better than some of the other re-boots because they’re handling it as an alternate timeline.

If you watched the older movies, there will be a few scenes that you remember. But even those are from the perspective of the timeline differences. I thought they really handled it well.

There was one moment, my “NNNNNOOOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOOOOOooooooo!!!!” moment, where it was just a little predictable. Lol, once I stopped freaking out and scaring all the movie-goers around me, I realized that it couldn’t be what I thought it was because that would just ruin everything and they’d lose ALL their money because no one in their right mind would buy this crap if they really went there and there would be angry letters, probably to the PRESIDENT, if they dared to go there and-

*deep breath, in with the good air, exhale, out with the bad*

Sorry. Mild geek-out. I’m ok now.

In case you’re wondering, I did manage to hide from mall security when they came to investigate….

I really like the way each character is growing and changing. And, like I mentioned in the characters section above, I’m the most excited about the way Spock is growing. Lol, I love the Spock-brand-almost-sarcasm that keeps popping up, and his relationship with Uhura, which I think humanizes him a little more.

The action and pacing were really well done. Lol, and of course the effects were amazing. I didn’t feel like this one slowed down at all, even when I was seeing something from the first timeline.

There are some tragic moments in this one, but they really balanced it out nicely ~~ which means I didn’t start any riots…. mall security was only called that one time… 🙂 Lol, with good reason, I swear. And even those tragic moments led up to some really touching ones. One in particular, which I can’t spoil for you. You’ll probably remember it immediately from one of the old movies – just a little differently. 🙂

My Rating for Star Trek: Into Darkness: Epic – Go see this one, possibly more than once because it’s just that awesome, especially if you, like me, wear your Trekiness as a badge of honor. See it if you liked the last Star Trek movie, and the older ones as well, or if you like sci-fi in general.

How in love am I? So in love that I’m putting something completely random at the end of this, just because it’s Spock times 2!! Enjoy!! XD

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My Rating System:

Epic: This movie is so mind-bogglingly awesome that I may go see it twice. This one will have a place of honor on my shelf.

Cash-Worthy: Good stuff. This will most likely find a place on my shelf.

Not Bad: I liked it. I’m glad I saw it, and it may or may not end up on my shelf at some point. I would say rent it first to be safe.

Meh: Rent it first. You may love it or hate it, but I’m indifferent probably because it’s not my type of movie. I’m glad I saw it, but it won’t end up on my shelf.

Emergency Cake: I have an emotional reaction to movies sometimes, especially to tragedies. If a movie makes me sad or angry, sometimes it will stick with me for a while. At these times, only chocolate cake can save me. Chocolate cake makes everything better. No shelf for you. Ever.

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