Thursday, December 26, 2013

Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

The movie, originally known as the Wrath of Holmes, or How I Learned To Stop Hating and Love The Triblle, ultimately was renamed Into Darkness. I guess this is a reference to certain actions taken by certain individuals throughout the film, and I don't mean those taken by Khan.
To be completely honest, I think we saw a little glimpse of Mr. Abrams Star Wart part 7. At the beginning of the movie when Krik amd Spock get called to Starfleet Command HQ and they are wearing the very militaristic grey uniforms with the officer's hats, I thought, "all we need to see are the plans for galaxy's greatest weapon and it's Star Wars", and I of course meant the Death Star, but as soon as they walk into the Admiral's office we pan along a line of space ships from the current day up to the Enterprise and this monstrous gun-metal grey ship right after it. I was waiting for a fade-out to the Jedi Temple where any Jedi Knight that isn't called by name in the Star Wars movies to be telling a Jedi Master of the same ilk about a rumor they had heard about the Senate building an army.
There were many inside jokes for the Star Trek fanbase, most of which I actually got. Well, I got all that I got and am assuming that there were ones that I didn't get. In fact, every scene that Karl Urban was in was like he wasn't playing Dr. McCoy as much as he was playing DeForrest Kelley as Dr. McCoy, and was very entertaining while doing it. Despite this I didn't really feel like I was watching a Star Trek film. I half expected Tom Cruise or Colin Farrel to come on screen at any moment and introduce the sub-plot that would prove that I was watching just anothyer big budget science fiction film. This is not a complaint. I really quite liked this film. Benedict Cumberbatch acted the crap out of the role of Khan. People had told me that he was so far beyond the other actors, who were not slouching mind you, that it was like a professional in with dinner theatre troupe. I don't think that was far from teh mark. I would love to see him opposite Patrick Stewart - in anything, it doesn't have to be Star Trek related. Maybe they could find a role for Mr. Cumberbatch in the upcoming X-Men film. That. Would. Rock.
The main weak point of this film was the way it used it's female characters. Unfortunately, it used them teh way that classic Trek used famele characters - as scenery and second-class characters. I felt that way about all of the women in teh movie, but the Adniral's daughter, what the fuck? It appears that the whole point of having her in the film was so that she could say, "Daddy, please don't kill them." All she had done before then was make statements like, "I am too a science officer" and "Why yes Captain, I will have sex with you later." An homage to Star Trek is one thing, but this would have been the chance to show us just how important Uhura was in running the Enterprise.

Star Trek: Into Darkness on IMDb

No comments: