Film Review | Star Trek Into Darkness

Making Star Trek sexy is a tall order, but the lens-flare happy director J.J. Abrams continues to do so with this sequel to his 2009 reboot of the classic TV and film space opera.

Before 2009, nobody thought Star Trek could be sexy. The long-running space exploration TV and film series had established a reputation for itself as a slightly stuffy, and entirely nerdy sci-fi opera throughout the decades of its long run, so much so that in recent years the franchise looked to be fading away from the cultural ether. 

With its apparently final television iteration, 'Star Trek: Enterprise', sputtering out in 2005 (it was cancelled by its network after five seasons) and a resounding lull in feature film adaptations too - the last being the lacklustre Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) - it looked as though the world had had its fill of the USS Enterprise and its mission to "boldly go where no man has gone before".

Enter J.J. Abrams.

The director-producer extraordinaire behind TV's Lost, Cloverfield, Super 8 and, in the near future - ironically enough, given this particular property - the upcoming Star Wars sequels, decided to conveniently cram Star Trek's long history into a parallel universe. He started afresh, with a new cast and a new direction.

This bold act of geek-defiance paid off: never a Star Trek fanatic, Abrams focused his energies on simply crafting a sleek and satisfying blockbuster crammed with all the necessary action beats and laced with the kind of humour that's also becoming the order of the day when it comes to 'tentpole' properties of its kind (see also: Avengers Assemble, the 'Iron Man' trilogy).

He may have pissed off a few hardcore 'Trekkies', but he made the turgid franchise palatable to a general audience - certainly no mean feat.

The long-awaited sequel continues very much in the same vein. Chris Pine is back to filling the sizeable boots left by William Shatner, as James Tiberius Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise, lands himself and his first officer, Mr Spock (Zachary Quinto) into a spot of trouble on an alien planet.

Disciplined by their superior Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood), the two of them are chucked out of the Enterprise and reassigned. But when a terrorist (Benedict Cumberbatch) threatens the stability of the entire Starfleet from within, Kirk's team is forced back into position.

But as the Enterprise embarks on its mission to pursue their mysterious target, they gradually find out that all may not be as it seems.

The only real, overarching snag to the otherwise high-octane experience of watching Star Trek Into Darkness is the fact that its tone and pacing have already been very much in evidence in recent blockbusters, particularly the superhero output from Marvel Studios, which arrived to equal - and international - fanfare, and at a high frequency, since the original Star Trek reboot in 2009.

So you've got the epic action sequences and expensive-looking CGI. You've also got the same frequency of jokes. It's a good, and now time-tested trick: we're a cynical audience by and large, and watching men in costumes gallivanting in space is a bit of a tough sell. So a good joke here and there lowers the stakes, and relaxes the mood.

Good thing that the script - penned by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof - accommodates some truly fun gags. Some of the best ones come at the expense of - sometimes through - the relationship between Spock and his shipmate Lieutenant Uhura (Zoe Saldana).

Spock, being of the obstinately 'logical' Vulcan race, doesn't quite get the emotional byways of romance, and watching him squirm as Uhura sulks is amusing to no end.

Add to this the boys' own banter between Kirk and the Enterprise's no-nonsense medic 'Bones' McCoy (Karl Urban) and the talents of Shaun of the Dead's own Simon Pegg as engineer Scotty (of 'beam me up, Scotty' fame) and you've got yourself a sci-fi adventure padded out with laughs good and proper.

But it's hardly all filler and no killer either. Abrams has had extensive experience marshalling big budget properties on both the big and small screens, and he knows how to grab (and sustain) an audience's attention.

Star Trek Into Darkness comes with some remarkably suspenseful set pieces... one of which - you'll know it when you experience it - will likely leave you holding your breath for a good couple of minutes. Can you name a film in recent years that has elicited a similar reaction?

But a story is, of course, only as good as its villain. And Benedict Cumberbatch's initially nameless man of menace-and-mystery remains a haunting presence throughout.

The 'Sherlock' actor is certainly well cast: his lanky, androgynous features already look alien, so the fact that he embodies the snaky, monotone superman with gusto makes him a memorable presence.

If it all sounds a bit too neat, a bit too calculated to entertain every step of the way, that's because it is.

Like its aforementioned superhero counterparts, it's a rollercoaster ride made up of sequences and 'beats' - not story arcs - where emotion and character development are just another special effect.

Good thing that nearly every beat hits home, then.