Marval Movie

Star Trek Into Darkness is the second of the Star Trek movies for this generation. Just like any good sequel it seeks to up the stakes, up the scope and further develop the characters.

The plot of Into Darkness revolves around a mysterious terrorist that is striking at the heart of Starfleet. This new enemy is such a great threat that he could plunge the entire world into darkness (get it).

J.J. Abrams returns as the director and once again he bring master camerawork and control over his leading actors to deliver an great movie experience. Ow and lest we forget the lens flares, that's right there in this movie as well.

OK so lets talk about what everyone else is talking about, the villain. The first Star Trek movie had Nero played by Eric Banner, a reasonable, threatening enough villain for the moment but admittingly forgettable, but this time we have an mysterious man named John Harrison played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Yes I'm a huge fan of the show Sherlock, so from that you can probably guess than I am also a huge Cumberbatch fan. He is more than just a big tough bad guy, he's interesting and complex and still has his motivations, as-well with  that he's smart, he can play the characters and exploit their weaknesses. Along with all that he has an amazing voice which he utilizes for scary, intimidating monologues. I was reminded of Ben Kinsley and the Mandarin, while he liked to savor every syllable, Cumberbatch is more deliciously pronouncing them.

Along with the villain there are other new characters, like Admiral Marcus played by Peter Weller (that's right Robocop) as the top dog in the Starfleet. Then a new science officer, played by Alice Eve, a pretty blonde that serves and an extra supporting character to the plot.

And of course we get the regular characters. Chris Pine is back as Kirk who now has to deal with being captain of a star-ship and all the responsibilities that comes with it. Spock and Uhura (Zachary Quinto and Zoey Saldana) that now have to deal with being in a relationship and the complications that that brings with them both being in the same working environment and the whole Vulcan thing.

This is the darker of the two movies and you'd probably expect a sequel to go, but when I thought about it I got a little worried. One of the things I liked about the first Star Trek movie was that it was bright with vibrant colors, movies today are getting darker and darker and there's hardly any color too them anymore. Luckily, even though this movie does have darker moments (both emotionally and color-wise) it still keeps its mostly vibrant color scheme which looks great.

The music by Michael Giacchino is again epic and glorious. But its a little more interesting than that, yes its a solid movie score and when it starts is all kinds of awesome, but I always forget about it when it been some time, the movie plays and then the score starts and I think "Ow yeah the new Star Trek score, this is awesome" its a score that buries itself in your subconscious and then surprises you when you hear it again.

For those of you that read my reviews more regularly you know I choose to watch movies in 2D, for this one I watched it in  2D because that's how J.J. Abrams wanted to film it and film it he did. But then the studio demanded that he convert the movie into 3D. I made a point of seeing the movie in 2D because that's how the movie was intended to be seen. The movie is fine in 2D and I saw no points that would have been heightened by the inclusion of 3D.

Star Trek Into Darkness may just be better than the first movie, I would like to talk about more of the plot details but honestly just a little bit of information could hint to people that already know their stuff about Star Trek, so I wont, but as a fan I was very satisfied. This isn't The Dark Knight standard of sequel where you had no idea what they could possibly do next, but it is all pulled off so well that you'll have a great time watching it.

Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 4