The elemental appeal of director J. J. Abrams’ 2009 reboot to the venerable Star Trek franchise lay in its giddy embrace of the adolescent joys of old-school, rocket-fueled adventure. Abrams portrayed the officers of the U.S.S. Enterprise as ultra-competent space cowboys, careening from one outrageous gambit to another while delivering dizzying science-fiction exposition and plenty of acerbic quips.
Abrams hews to this successful formula in his new feature, Star Trek Into Darkness, which pits James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the rest of the crew against rogue Starfleet agent-turned-terrorist James Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). The pursuit of Harrison draws the Enterprise into a clandestine mission on the fringes of the Klingon Empire, and in the process reimagines several of the characters, conflicts, and set pieces from the original series and films.
The screenplay by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Demon Lindelof is dense with classic Star Trek physics mumbo-jumbo, not to mention call-outs and allusions aimed to elicit squeals of delight from Trekkies. However, the occasional cheesy fan-service moments feel like a distraction from the film’s real virtues: non-stop, rollicking sci-fi action and snappy dialogue between sharply-drawn characters. As in 2009, Quinto’s bone-dry and yet vulnerable Spock is the main attraction in a pack of spry performances.
While Star Trek Into Darkness has its share of glaring plot holes, laggy narrative stretches, and ham-fisted political allegory, it’s hard to resist the pure popcorn-movie energy of the thing. Abrams’ Trek films are bigger and more Buck Rogers than the parent show, which is just fine: an hour-long television series is a far better format for thoughtful character development and utopian civics lessons than the summer studio blockbuster.
