There is a suspiciously beautiful madness in the new Star Trek movie that glows more and more
obvious the more it races past you. It hit me about midway through: “This is a
stupid movie.”
Not to say that I didn’t enjoy it — because I did, immensely —
just that J.J. Abrams, newly appointed wunderkind to all your nerdy childhood
treasures, seems to think he’s reinvented the wheel with his updated versions
of Star Trek. Yes, Star Trek Into Darkness is flashier,
glitzier, more action packed, and the most remarkable visual presentation of a Star Trek movie you will ever see. But it’s
also a hollow experience. Abrams has taken all the things that people loved about Star Trek and boiled them down, until
all that’s left are caricatures of the world Gene Roddenberry invented. Captain
Kirk is a womanizing lothario, Spock is a logic-obsessed stickler, Bones is a
second-guessing know-it-all and everyone else is a silent extra there to fill the
background. Humans are good, Vulcans are gone, Tribbles are props, Klingons are
warmongers. Ships exist to serve captains, federations exist to serve admirals,
and planets exist so crews can beam each other onto and off them. It’s a
courtesy that Abrams has simplified everything, but in the process he’s made
his Star Trek universe flat and
two-dimensional, a model that will be hopelessly unsustainable unless it can
root itself in something other than nostalgia.
It breaks my heart to write that because Star Trek Into Darkness is a rip-roaring sci-fi adventure,
certainly on par with last month’s more grounded, more cerebral Oblivion, another hyper sci-fi flick
with a distinct style. Into Darkness,
like The Dark Knight before it, draws
much of its power from a convincingly evil villain, here played by British
actor Benedict Cumberbatch, whose child-like face makes for a creepy nemesis. He
plays John Harrison, an obsolete super soldier from the Federation’s past who
now plots terrorist acts against Earth as retribution for a mysterious cover-up
involving bulky space torpedoes.
Hot on the case is the USS Enterprise, once again captained by
James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) after a brief furlough. You’ll know his crew: Bones,
Uhura, Chekov, Scotty, Sulu and Spock. They all return and they all have
issues, so many that the film nearly drowns in meaningless subplots, including
one with Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) going through a lover’s
quarrel. They eventually kiss and make up in the engineering room in front of
the entire engine crew. With so many rules in the Federation, you’d think
dating (and sucking face) with a subordinate in front of the warp core would be
one of them.
I mention rules because the annotated, footnoted,
cross-referenced Federation rules are an overreaching theme in these Star Trek movies. And they have to be to
balance out the by-the-books Spock with James “What books?” Kirk. Every
piece of dialogue seems to exist to reinforce that the rules are there to be
broken and, equally, that the rules bind us all together in harmony. It’s a tug
of war that challenges Spock and Kirk, and it’s nice to see the Harrison character essentially cut the rope and send the
whole dynamic flailing in opposite directions.
Abrams also has style, which may eventually be his undoing. His
kinetic camera movements are dizzying and effective at keeping the movie's momentum. His sets are spectacular,
especially the Enterprise
with its CGI-less corridors and realistic-looking machinery. Everything is
colorful, from the buttons on holographic panels to the department-specific
shirts on all the crew members. With sci-fi movies — and movies in general —
growing more and more grey, I love watching a film made with an assortment of colors
and a visual presence. Other things don’t go over so well, including those
irritating lens flares. Certainly some of them are warranted, but every shot
flickering with flares is far too much. It’s odd that space ships can travel at
the speed of light and can beam people from one place to another in an instant,
but a light bulb can’t be made without a polarized filter.
Even worse than the lens flares are the shaky-cam effects and the
rapid-fire editing. I’m fighting a losing battle on this point, but it’s one I
won’t stop arguing: the shaky camera thing is completely unnecessary, almost as
unnecessary as that inexplicable shot of the science officer in her underwear
in the loading dock. (Seriously, was the movie testing poorly with men? “Hey, we
should add a woman in some lingerie here … uhh, just because.”)
All of this builds to a conclusion I can’t spoil for you,
although you may have already seen it coming. I will say this: Abrams chickened
out. What he gives us is essentially a non-ending, one that appeases fans and
his need for more movies. I wanted some finality, if not to every plot point
then at least one of them. Into Darkness,
though, climaxed prematurely with earlier, and better, scenes and then spent
its final 20 minutes on mindless overdrive. The final ending just fizzles into
closing credits. I was disappointed that the story wasn’t taken further, and
that it wimped out on Spock’s new-found appreciation of rule-breaking and
Kirk’s mismanagement of his ship (come on, does the captain have to do
everything?).
I nitpicked a lot of this movie because its smaller errors are
obvious and countless, and its bigger ones were frustrating. In the end,
though, Star Trek Into Darkness is a
terrific movie, even though I liked its parts more than the film as a whole.
The action is stellar, the effects are wondrous, and the story kept me
thoroughly interested in the Enterprise ’s
missions. I just wish that J.J. Abrams would find a way to fill his plots with
more purpose. It all still seems like lip service to Trekkies.
