The Wrath Of Khan is the pseudo-basis for Into Darkness and it's into darkness I certainly felt in the aftermath of the movie's events. The schizophrenic nature of Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood); the shoehorned and blatant misogyny of Alice Eve (Carol Marcus); the confusing defusing torpedo sequence; the unfulfilled evil that was promised of John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and even JJ Abrams' forgetfulness that he has dumped Chekov (Anton Yelchin) in the engine room left me feeling too much in awe of the twinkling sound of lightspeed vapours and less of the story. The story being, James T Kirk (Chris Pike) and his crew effect an underdeveloped alien species on a planet verging on self-destruction by appearing before them. This allows Kirk's dismissal from the Enterprise, but he is then reinstated upon the arrival of rogue officer John Harrison and his murderous rampage of all things Starfleet.
Basically, spoiler alert, John Harrison is Khan, the superhuman genetically altered 300 year-old human posing as a Starfleet company man who wants to decimate any species he considers inferior. His revelation of his true name had me in shock in my seat, but that was because I knew what evil the character of Khan had imposed in his previous incarnation: he killed Spock for crying out loud. But that's just it, I shouldn't know of the evil Khan imposes from his previous outing. This series is a re-whatever, and this should be new for me and the audience around me. There were a few giggles as I expressed a mixture of shock and delight from fellow Trek fans, and to be honest, there were nods all round as iconic moments were revisited: Kirk dying of radiation poison instead of Spock, Bones' cry of "Dammit, man...!" and the inclusion of Alice Eve (sans child). But, dammit man, I don't need Future Spock (Leonard Nimoy) hashtag spoiler alert, telling me that Khan is pure evil when my imagining and no doubt other viewers' imaginings of evil are.
The only moment I gasped at regarding Khan's brutality was when the Starfleet Archive was completely obliterated. That was it. Khan's massacre of Starfleet hierachy and betrayal of Kirk aboard the super-warship Vengeance was not a surprise. Not even the Klingons had me from the moment they appeared. They didn't look like our Klingons, well, the one we did see unmasked. I understand, again, this is a re-whatever; but why change something that's good in the first place. The death of Kirk as opposed to Spock was beautiful; it revealed some hidden heartache from Spock. That he does not choose to not feel, that he simply wishes not to remember the awful tragedy that incurred on Vulcan.
This was the one thing I really enjoyed, Zachary Quinto's turn as Spock. His character found himself answering the questions he didn't realise he could. For a moment, Spock wasn't cold and logical, he felt human or rather half-human and developed onscreen throughout. The relationship between himself and Kirk grew too; although I consider Kirk to still be as reckless, if not more so, than before. Kirk took a backseat for this ride, even though the paralleling headline was of meeting and beating his ultimate nemesis. But where the film did not deliver on Khan's stagetime, it most certainly delivered on admirable showmanship between various previously known characters. Bones stood out for me in particular, but that's mainly because I have a soft spot for Karl Urban. Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Chekov felt missing, despite Uhura being key to the success of the Klingons' co-operation. With a crew like this, it must be hard to give them all apt screentime; but it was managed in The Wrath Of Khan, so why not here? Akin to Fast And Furious 6, the cast felt a little bit bloated and I almost wasn't surprised when Chekov was put in a red sweater. There was no need to introduce Alice Eve, at least not on this outing, nor was it necessary to make her runner of the Prometheus-style twists.
The ending left me feeling underwhelmed. Kirk was brought back to life (no Search For Kirk sequel then) and Khan was put to sleep in a shipping container for no explained reason other than for us to assume he will return. This is the thing with sequels at the moment; they introduce a character to be set up even more so later. No, don't do that, introduce them, make them so painfully evil and either put the protaganist down or the antagonist go AWOL so we are left wide-eyed and wondering in the next installment. Don't half deliver and wrap things with a bow to be received next time. Ah well, still there is one thing that makes me forget all that: Bird Of Prey.
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