Star Trek: Into Darkness

            I still like last night's twitter joke: How do you make your kid a Star Wars fan?  Show him the very first Star Trek movie.

            Come on.  That's funny.

            On to the review!

            Of course, since pretty much anyone interested in seeing Star Trek went and saw StarTrek: Into Darkness over the weekend (or on its oddly early Wednesday release) I really didn't have to worry about getting a timely review up.  This is good because there's no way to put up a convincing yeah/nay review without spoilers.  Since I don't have to convince anyone to see or avoid it, here's my spoiler-free opinion.

            First off, Star Trek: Into Darkness is freaking gorgeous.  This is the sort of future that everyone wants to live in.  Every building's architecture is ballin', the spaceships are sexy, and even the corridors look like they were hired by a modeling agency.

            In J.J. Abrams' second installment of the franchise reboot, Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is still the Captain of the Enterprise, albeit one who seems to have a hell of a hard time playing by the rules.  His crew still include Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Bones (Karl Urban), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Sulu (John Cho) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin).  We're introduced to a newcomer later in the movie in Carol (Alice Eve) who is important.  I know this because she is not wearing a red shirt, and all newcomers in non-red shirts are important.  Shut up that's not a spoiler.

            Unsurprisingly Kirk gets into trouble with Starfleet almost immediately, but before he can learn any sort of lesson about humility a mysterious stranger (Benedict Cumberbatch) shows up and starts to make things explode that aren't supposed to explode.  At this point we get to spend the rest of the film buried in mystery, action and intrigue.  And explosions.  So many explosions.

            I am quite impressed with Abrams' ability to rewrite the history of Star Trek while still staying true to the idea.  In both of his films he's kept the heart of the originals while still throwing in his own twists and tweaks.  This second outing, I feel, is much closer to the 'perfect' film that was The Wrath ofKhan than his first try, but that ends up being both the movie's strength and weakness.

            The Wrath of Khan is arguably the best movie in the entire franchise's history, and that makes it a tough sumbitch to go up against.  Abrams does his best and takes quite a few risks, some that pan out and others that don't.  No, this is not a remake, but nor is it a reimagining.  It is something different yet similar.  If that makes any sense to you then I'd like an explanation.

            There are still some downsides.  One, there is way way waaaaay too much plot crammed into this film.  Because of twist after twist after twist, there is absolutely no room to breathe during its entire 144 minute run time.  Yet, despite being over two hours long there is jack shit for character development.  These guys aren't the well-loved and decently known actors from the original series, who had several seasons of TV under their belt before the movies were even made.  These are fresh guys with fresh lives yet most of them will undoubtedly remain two-dimensional for as long as the reboot lasts.

            Finally, and this was the most disappointing part, Into Darkness is predictable.  I don't mean you know how it's going to end, I mean you know how it's going to play out in nearly every scene.  This takes away from some of the magic of seeing how great a job was done in rebooting such a storied franchise.  If you're a fan, don't let it stop you, but don't expect its predictability to be a boon, either.  A few of the later twists are so damn silly you may be wishing you hadn't seen it coming.