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Thursday, May 16, 2013

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)



J.J. Abrams is not afraid of being compared to Steven Spielberg. In fact, he seems to invite it, and that was never more apparent than in his own Super 8 from 2011. When it wasn’t a straight-up homage/rip-off of Close Encounters and E.T., it was evoking Spielberg-produced films from the same era such as The Goonies. His latest film Star Trek Into Darkness, the sequel to his own 2009 original which rebooted the undying franchise, can perhaps best be described as his attempt to make the last hour of Raiders of the Lost Ark. As a franchise, Star Trek is known to be one of the more contemplative science fiction establishments, but that’s all thrown out the window here. One can attempt to pull out any number of themes or allegories from Into Darkness, but that may be giving Abrams a tad too much credit. At best they are brought up briefly and then quickly discarded. This is a two-hour guitar solo of a movie; a nonstop action scene that might be annoying if it weren’t so thrillingly effective. If Abrams was looking to make his Star Wars: Episode VII sizzle reel, he succeeded with flying colors.


After an opening sequence involving the Enterprise’s attempts to save a planet from extinction, the audience is introduced to Into Darkness’ villain-du-jour: John Harrison, played impeccably by Benedict Cumberbatch. Through a series of terrorist attacks he has started a war against Star Fleet, and the Enterprise is tasked with hunting him down. This means getting the band of Capt. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and more back together for a trip out to the hostile planet of Kronos, where Harrison is hiding out. From there Abrams continues to turn up the volume until it becomes deafening, as crisis after crisis must be dealt with by Kirk and the crew. Most of these involve the mysterious Harrison. Others do not. All you need to know is it involves a great deal of running, jumping and shooting.

I am not a Star Trek aficionado, so I cannot approach this film through that lens. However, from what I can tell this film will do nothing to win the die-hards over who disliked Abrams’ first film. If anything, he doubles down on some of the things that these people might have found annoying. This is an action movie through-and-through, and it deals less in exploration of foreign planets and more in providing as many thrills as possible. For people like me who have fewer expectations of what a Star Trek film is supposed to do, Into Darkness works quite well as an exciting summer blockbuster. It is big, loud, it looks cool and it never drags. Abrams was born to make movies like this, and he has a gift for it. Visually his style isn’t far removed from the likes of Michael Bay, what with the low angles and the swooping cameras, but he’s able to make the chaos more coherent and pleasurable than Bay ever has.

There are plenty of bones to be picked with Star Trek Into Darkness, but none of them have anything to do with the cast. Abrams’ first film did a great job of putting together a winning ensemble to run the Enterprise, and the sequel gets to the desirable place where the chemistry feels wholly lived in. Most of the action here goes the direction of Pine, Quinto, Saldana and Karl Urban with an extra dose of Simon Pegg thrown in, and their relationships always felt completely convincing. On the villain’s side, Cumberbatch is absolutely chilling as Harrison, and the moment when he reveals his true story to Kirk is one of the best in the movie. The problem: Cumberbatch’s character is very much part of a recent villain trend that is starting to grow old. I don’t want to spoil it too much, but his plan here shares one crucial aspect with the likes of the Joker in The Dark Knight, Raoul Silva in Skyfall, Loki in The Avengers and a million other recent bad guys. It’s a flavor that’s lost any real freshness it once had, but the character works here because Cumberbatch is able to make even the most unoriginal moments come to life.

Star Trek Into Darkness carries itself like an unpredictable movie even though it is very, very predictable. I was most intrigued by the plot in the middle third, when the way we see Cumberbatch completely changes and the film gets set to kick into high gear for about the last hour without stopping. As far as the actual story goes, this movie doesn’t have all that much to offer. Its pleasures exist almost completely in how it is able to pull off each set piece, and Abrams is a guy who hits far more often than he misses. I’m still waiting for him to make a movie that is able to kick into the next gear and actually pack an emotional punch, but for now he's become an expert at making things blow up in a pleasurable manner. He’s yet to make a bad movie; they all do precisely what they set out to do. The mild frustration is that my expectations have yet to be exceeded. I’m skeptical that Star Wars Episode VII is going to change that, but that’s a conversation for another day.

One of my favorite things about Abrams’ Star Trek movies, though, is the way he puts together the universe. Only in the opening sequence here does the CGI become truly overbearing and weightless. Past that, he is quite good at creating worlds and stretches of space that feel like they actually exist. His scenes of space combat are mostly terrific, which again just backs up my theory that this is his Star Wars sizzle reel. There are other things about his Star Trek universe I’m not thrilled about—why is Kirk such a huge fan of 300 year old Beastie Boys music?—but above all there is a concerted effort to make it feel like it could really exist. There’s discipline to it. It’s not just CGI palaces as far as the eye can see.

This is a film designed to be a broad crowd-pleaser. Despite the occasional winking reference, it is not designed to cater to Star Trek-heads. It is a movie that wants to thrill everyone that walks in the door, and based on my crowd reaction (and the early audience reception in general) it is succeeding. It will likely disappoint those who were expecting something else, and perhaps you could argue it should be more reverential to the Star Trek name, but if you just let it happen to you it’s hard to actively dislike it. It is massive, it is dumb, it is loud, but it is a good time nonetheless. It has thrill ride ambitions and nothing more. Each audience member just has to decide if that is good enough. For most, it will be.

 Grade: B

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