Star Trek Into Darkness Blu-ray Review
Star Trek Into Darkness got a bit of an unexpected smack back in the face from fans upon its release in cinemas last May. JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof’s penchant for keeping secrets bit them royally in the ass when the films best (or perhaps worst) kept secret got out finally and saw Trek fans returning against them. So bad it got that there was an official poll launched to list the best-worst Trek movies and Into Darkness found itself unfairly at the bottom of the list. So unfair that the list even included a film that wasn’t even a Star Trek film.
But now that the cooling off period is over we can look with fresh eyes on the film to see just how the damage holds up.
On the positive side there is that the cast that have pretty much all upped their game. True some get more screen time that others (Have we forgotten just how important “Bones” is to the franchise?), but everyone pretty much shines. Newcomers Benedict Cumberbatch and especially Peter Weller deliver some truly menacing work as the chief antagonists.
Along the way there is plenty of peril, adventure, laughs and drama for couple of hours. It is however pretty much the Kirk and Spock show. Kirk gets to go on a much more compelling emotional story this time round, which actually manages to correct a few of the flaws from his rather out of control behaviour from the first film. Spock takes a step or two closer to getting more in touch with his human side, and as a result the friendship bonds begin to bind all the tighter.
The bad news is that yes Cumberbatch is playing that “two dimensionally thinking villain” whose plans and thought process seemed to have only narrowed. Yes there are still lens flares in JJ’s direction (One particular shot held on Alice Eve (no not the underwear shot) that may cause viewers to wince at the light), and yes the plot itself is a bit nonsensical. Sadly also returning is previous film’s composer Michael Giacchino and his grating “theme” that he invented for the previous film. Sadly this means at the start and towards the end of the film having to listen to the damned thing over and over again during the “Hero” moments of the film – which in close succession just goes to highlight why the man is not and never will be the next John Williams, or James Horner, or Jerry Goldsmith for that matter.
This 2D version of the Blu-ray is very sharp and has some pretty flawless effects. The story and ideas may have dropped the ball this time round, but there are still some heavy laughs, good character development and technological leaps forward. Roddenberry’s future isn’t perfect, but it is still bright enough for the next film to actually boldly go where everyone expected them to go this time round.
All in all this is 2 hours of technically superior entertainment that will work better on fans of this new series and not the die-hard fans of the original series.
The extras though consist of 40 minutes of various featurettes focussing on different scenes from the film.
Steven Hurst