Okay, just got back from Star Trek Into Darkness, so brace yourselves because I cannot talk about it without SPOILING THE HELL out of the first real twist. Now, granted, the twist was guessed months and months ago, and the movie itself drops a big hint in the first 10 minutes of the film before the main title appears, but you'd only get that one if you're a diehard Trekkie.
Big surprise, Benedict Cumberbatch is playing Khan. Wow, bet you didn't see that one coming huh? It really wasn't the most surprising twist as I thought right away that JJ Abrams and the cast doth protested too much. "He's not Khan! He's not Khan!" Guess what, he's fucking Khan. Now, that being said, he's amazing in the role, and I certainly enjoyed him more than Eric Bana in the previous film...HOWEVER, for me at least, he is no Ricardo Montalban.
That coat's not even made of rich, soft Corinthian leather either, is it?
Sorry, but there it is. For me (and doubtless thousands of other Trekkies), Montalban defined the role of Khan Noonien Singh. But then again, we grew up with his portrayal, so I freely admit my bias. Now, again, I am certainly not saying that Cumberbatch is awful, far from it. I'd be willing to say that he turns in a Heath-Ledger-as-Joker level of performance, and manages to give one of Trek's most iconic villains a measure of pathos he never had before.
Now, Khan's inclusion in the Abrams-verse is a bold move, but it leads to one of my three biggest problems in the film: whole scenes, lines of dialogue, and shots are lifted wholesale from The Wrath of Khan to the point where, I shit you not, one of the principal cast actually screams "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!" I facepalmed at that, and I think I bugged some of the other audience members by chuckling aloud at some of the other things lifted straight from the older film. The weird thing is, at no point does Cumberbatch quote WoK himself. My feeling is, well if you're going to lift "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" from the original film, at least let the guy quote Moby Dick and bite out a "From Hell's heart, I stab at thee!" Although I can understand why they might not have, in an attempt to have Cumberbatch's performance distanced from Montalban's. But then again, if you're going to do that, why in another scene do they have Quinto quote Nimoy?!
Then again, this happens so I may be inclined to give you a pass.
Which leads me into my other biggest problem with the film. (The third problem isn't a huge deal, but I'll cover it shortly.) At one point during the third act, in an effort to understand Khan, Zachary Quinto's Spock actually calls up Leonard Nimoy's Spock for Trek Support (I've been doing the math on that joke for the entire bus ride home). I had to groan at that, because it implies that now they can use Old Spock as the easiest fucking out in the universe to solve any problem. Hey, there's a weird probe heading for Earth? TO THE SPOCK PHONE! Now, it was admittedly kind of cool to have Nimoy briefly reflect in character, and the second Quinto-Spock mentions the name Khan, you can tell by the slight widening of his eyes that Nimoy-Spock just wanted to say "KILL HIS ASS WHILE YOU HAVE THE CHANCE!!!" if it wasn't for all that Vulcan no emotions stuff. Kind of a neat 30-second cameo, but honestly, the film didn't really benefit from it. JJ, let them figure it out on their own.
Oh right.
My final problem is simply: It's predictable. You can pretty much guess where the plot is going about 5 minutes in advance the entire time...except for one twist, which I won't spoil because it's actually pretty cool. But I guess that also comes with the fact that we're dealing with an established villain that many of us are familiar with.
So the big question is then, is it a good movie? YES. You can overlook the predictability quite easily, Cumberbatch's Khan is an amazing portrayal, the Kirk-Spock-McCoy dynamic is in place, and there's tons of little Easter Eggs for the hardcore Trek fan. Also, there's a tribble, and I love those little guys. My gripes notwithstanding, it's a great film for the non-Trekkies, and a solid fun ride for the established Trekkies. The only major flaw I'd say is the whole lifting of stuff from TWoK. At least the next film won't be a new take on Search for Spock.
But JJ? Seriously, it's okay to pay homage to the classic, but can you try to make the next one a teensy more original? Or at least don't start grabbing shots you enjoyed from Star Wars IV-VI and shoving them willy-nilly into Star Wars VII?
My rating? 9/10
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