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Star Trek Into Darkness Movie Review

Star Trek Into Darkness is a 2013 science fiction action film directed by J. J. Abrams and starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Benedict Cumberbatch. It’s another weak modern entry.

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“The fact that your are a doctor is precisely

why I need you to listen very carefully“

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The USS Enterprise crew travels to the forbidden zone in space to rescue an endangered species. Captain Kirk then leads his team to a war-zone world in search of a weapon of mass destruction. This movie brought back Khan, which is the most important aspect of it. And I have mixed feelings about it.

Now, Benedict Cumberbatch was excellent in this role. He is always great as a villain and Hollywood needs to make more villain roles for him for sure. However, this Khan was simply the same as he was before, though a bit less theatrical and more dangerous perhaps. But still, bringing him back for no reason whatsoever other than to appease fans was an utterly misguided attempt by the producer and Abrams himself, a man always up to recycling old stories and characters in order to suck up to fans.

There is some solid dialogue to be had here and again Pine and Quinto are excellent. Some of the supporting cast is also quite strong with Pegg being reliably endearing. The second act of the movie is the best as it features some interesting conversations, but the rest of it was pretty uninspired and forgettable.

Admittedly, the action in Star Trek Into Darkness is very strong and even more memorable than it was in its predecessor. The last fight was especially terrific. However, the movie once again jettisoned all storytelling and characterization in order to focus more on expensive effects and action scenes, leading to a totally disappointing mess.

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It looks good for sure and it is also very well scored, but there is nothing here to be found in terms of themes and/or emotion. The movie has no heart whatsoever, which made me sad as even the weaker Star Trek movies in the past had heart. I did like some moments, but for the most part they failed to add anything of substance to the same old story repeated from ‘The Wrath of Khan’.