Star Trek Into Darkness (no spoilers) my mini review (1 Viewer)

Opened here in London today.

STID 7/10 from me for Star Trek 2009 I would give 10/10 .

The problem this movie has is it lacks emotional resonance & seems too studio tentpole by the numbers action/story wise. There is very little story & the movie does reuse some elements of TWOK which make no real sense other than the film makers could not think of a better alternative in the timeframe available to make the movie. The TWOK elements reused are not even an issue to me as they add/subtract nothing from this film they are just plain dumb & slightly confusing how anyone @ the exec level who matters on this film considered using them let alone filming them its mind boggling IMO

If you liked or even loved the 2009 movie like I do then this will not be as happy an experience especially if your a TOS fan some of the choices made here will either make you shrug your shoulders or get quite angry if your still very passionate about TOS.

I think the next movie needs to have a whole new team working on it so they can approach the material from another fresh perspective after only 2 movies this one gives me the strong impression they have no ideas left already which is quite shocking when the same team made 2009 into such a strong movie. Several minor scenes here are rehashed from 2009 but filmed again why makes no sense whatsoever.

They have IMO almost undone all that 2009 movie goodwill & constructed a rushed & at times poorly made sequel which has some key scenes mishandled which I still cannot believe how poorly they handled them not just the dumb plot points the actual acting/directing combo felt like they were tests not the finished product

Unsure this film will do as well as it needs to internationally so not sure if this is the last hurrah for big budget Trek on the big screen. Paramount spent a lot of money on marketing this overseas they will need to score some major $$$$ to recoup that & the 2009 movie only made $139m outside N America.

Its more of a sci-fi action adventure set in the Star Trek universe than a typical Star Trek movie or TOS episode. Any child over the age of 7-8 will not be bothered by this its pretty bloodless the onscreen violence is comic book in tone I think the target audience for this movie is the 7-16 year old age band.

For me personally the entire movie peaked when the main titles started up that first little pre-credits sequence worked very well but after that the movie slowly then rapidly went downhill & started to fall apart & stop working onscreen in a believable fashion (you will know when you see it what I am talking about )

Go in expecting little & avoid all the trailers/tv spots they give away way too much info on key scenes its a passable movie going experience but not a worthy follow up to the 2009 movie merely a passable one IMO.

Sigh...

If I had read your review without seeing your score first I would have guess that you were giving it something like a 3 out of 10. You had to like something to get to a 7/10, could you expand on that some? Just curious.

Chris Will said:

If I had read your review without seeing your score first I would have guess that you were giving it something like a 3 out of 10. You had to like something to get to a 7/10, could you expand on that some? Just curious.

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Without spoiling anything it misses the target its just misdirected & poorly acted/edited in many places. But there are still some cool but brief Star Trek moments so its not a total disaster for me personally the cool things which I will not mention as they are spoilers elevate it above a much lower score around the 4-5 out of 10 mark. For non Star trek fans the dumb moments will not matter either way but for anyone who is a fan or even older than the target audience (7-16) some things will bother them a lot as certain things happen which make the film seem like a poor dream as the way some key moments happen play more like a SNL episode than a big budget movie IMO. STID makes The Phantom Menace seem like a masterpiece storytelling wise

After reading Paul's review, I too thought that the rating would be around a two or a three.

For the past week or two, I've been considering skipping this film and waiting until it comes out on DVD. I will at least purchase it on DVD because I have to this point liked everything about Star Trek, and because I own all of the films and series.

I get a sneak peak tonight, and that's what I'm hearing too.. that the reviews are very mixed.

Ockeghem said:

After reading Paul's review, I too thought that the rating would be around a two or a three.

For the past week or two, I've been considering skipping this film and waiting until it comes out on DVD. I will at least purchase it on DVD because I have to this point liked everything about Star Trek, and because I own all of the films and series.

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If you liked TOS then its still worth seeing at the cinema but apart from the pre-credits sequence you get a few small pieces of TOS like Trek the rest is pretty average hence the 7/10 from me if I did not like TOS then yep 3/10 would be about right unless your the young target audience its hard to like this movie especially if you want some intelligence the movie struggles to deliver at all on any level actually

Mixed reviews? So far it's 90% fresh at rotten tomatoes with 60 reviews. I would say that's overwhelmingly positive.

And the Variety review is an all out rave.

J.J. Abrams sets his filmmaking to “stun” for “Star Trek Into Darkness,” a sequel in every respect equal or even superior to its splendid 2009 predecessor, which lovingly and cleverly rebooted Gene Roddenberry’s long-running space opera following the black hole of 2002’s “Star Trek Nemesis.” Markedly grander in scale, although never at the expense of its richly human (and half-human) characters, “Into Darkness” may not boldly go where no “Trek” adventure has gone before, but getting there is such a well-crafted, immensely pleasurable ride that it would be positively Vulcan to nitpick. Global box office cume should easily warp past the prior pic’s $385 million for this sturdy Paramount tentpole, which opens overseas May 9 before beaming down Stateside one week later.

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Well see how it fares when more reviews come out, especially from top critics but so far so good.

It's also tracking to open north of $90 million. And close to $300 million domestic total.

Got my tickets for Wednesday at midnight! Can't wait, this and The Hobbit are my most anticipated of the year.

http://trekmovie.com/2013/05/14/mark-altmans-review-of-star-trek-into-darkness/

This review sums up my feelings on the movie, and I haven't even seen it yet. Just 33 more hours to go!!

Watched Star Trek Into Darkness last night. Thoroughly enjoyed it. There are plenty of twists I didn't see coming. I can't say much more without spoiling it. Suffice to say Abrams, Pine, Quinto, Cumberbatch etc are very good liars when it comes to interviews regarding their film.

It is more Star Wars than Star Trek with a dash of Indiana Jones for good measure, I would say there is too much action in this movie and engineering still looks like an oil refinery.

All the cast do great work and Cumberbatch is Star Trek's best villain since Ricardo Montalban's Khaaaaaaan!

Did you know the Enterprise can pass for a submarine too? Yes this isn't your father's Star Trek, or your mothers.

Highly recommended and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. 5 out of 5.

Going by this, Star Wars is in good hands.

There's a clip in the latest TV commercial that appears to be an homage to The Scene from Wrath of Khan. It makes me nervous.

You're getting warm, Aaron.

Ok, I've held back because I could see the directions the reviews were going, and I will use the spoilers tag. I hated this film. Like, really, really hated it. The action is exciting, but almost completely ridiculous; overly ridiculous.

I get the comment above that "Trek fans dislike it because it's fun.." And I recognize my thoughts will fall into that camp. Frankly, I've found a lot of trek films "fun" and some to be quite terrible. But in the end, I judge this film not against other Treks, or anything like that, but against what I want to see when I see a film.. good excitement with a storyline that holds me and is more than explosions. I say this because there are great action films that are amazing fun .. and then there are over the top vehicles which made a lot of money but as far as I'm concerned were not very good.

Trek largely falls into the second category. For the positives: see it in 3D. The production values are incredible, the effects are amazing and it is a rip roaring ride... and it will be must own material in Bluray 3D. But while you are doing that, turn off your mind, because the plot isn't just "not really trek" it's really, really bad. I mean, full of insane plotholes that make later seasons of Alias look smart by comparison.

Benedict Cumberbatch gives a great performance, but despite his supposed enhanced abilities and insane IQ, he makes numerous irrational and, frankly stupid decisions that I could almost imagine a 9th grader coming up with.. for someone of unbelievable brilliance, he's shockingly stupid. But more to the point is something I had a problem with from the get go..


But the action.. oh yes, the action. Tons and tons of explosions. Lots of stuff blows up real good - and the audience will love some of the effects. But the central plot, which ends up revolving around


The first half has some interesting moments - and some good ones; the second half the plot is a typical action romp that you have to completely turn off your brain for because the plot makes NO sense, not just to a trekkie, but even to those who aren't really fans. The person who watched with me was definitely not a major Trek-fan, and they pointed out the same problem I had: "couldn't they do something.. else?" Yeah, pretty much.

As a Trek fan, I have to admit one of the problems I had with this -was- Trek related, and that is that we have.. lets just say a LOT of people die.. and yet, walla we just press on.. in fact, after people get wiped out in droves, there isn't really that much remorse or dealing with it, it's straight forward action. JJ Abrams had said in an interview that he thought Star Trek was too philisophical.. well, frankly this movie has no real philosophy that works; in all Trek versions in the past, a major die off would have at least got a few scenes of "it's a horrible tragedy.. " and a short bit about the death of people; in fact, those scenes helped humanize the roles.. here, people die and we move on at such wildly breakneck speed that within a matter of seconds (maybe a couple of minutes) we're on to the next action set piece.

I get that this will work for a lot of people. I'm sure 90% of the people in this thread are going to say "it's awesome", because the effects -are- awesome, and the action IS awesome. But the storyline flat out sucks.


So, there you go. Probably the only negative review you'll read about this. It needed a step down in how many action sequences, and for someone to have a much better plot. And trek or not, blockbuster or not, the re-watchability for me is going to boil down to plot...

Great action.. incredible 3D.. people will see it and be wowed. But it's not very good.

LOW C- If you leave out the 3D and great special effects, D-/F. But the special effects will keep people attending, they are quite good..

Well, interesting. I skimmed over some comments to avoid knowing too much before I see this. Obviously I'm a fan given my avatar. From what Matt wrote, this sounds like Into Darkness makes Star Trek The Motion Picture look like a masterwork. And I really like TMP, despite it's faults.Or perhaps it's more appropriate to compare to one of TOS's better action episodes like Balance of Terror.I'm looking forward to seeing this just to see what they did.

To Matt...Going after one person, regardless of borders, has gone on for centuries. Hell, a "people" has gone on the hunt for another "people" throughout history. Or was your head in the sand for Hussein, Bin Laden and have you not seen The Debt?

My quickie review: too derivative with bits from both the TOS and the early ST movies, decent cast chemistry, too damn much frikkin' lens flare. Why aren't the people on the bridge wearing sunglasses? They should be blind by now. So ridiculous.

The story mechanics are pretty underwhelming to get from one set piece to the next one. I'll put the blame on Lindelhof for the bad plotting. Heh. Plus, I thought was too much exposition in the middle, for film, much better to show than tell, but maybe they ran into budget overrun issues. I don't know.

The 3D wasn't a waste, a few spots where the in-yo-face stuff makes you duck.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.