Friends, I'm gonna be honest here. This was a difficult one to write.
It's not because I didn't like the movie. I did. Let's get that out of the way. It's partly because my writing is rusty and I'm woefully out of practice. This is the first action the blog has seen in six months, and the reasons for that are another story for another day. It's partly because, as a way to get back into it, I've been maybe trying too hard to say something that 50,000 other people haven't already said about it.
But the main problem I had is that it's hard for me to write about this movie without giving away half of it.
So I'll start with the heavier, more philosophical stuff. Kirk disobeys every single order he's given in this movie. But I think his decision to attempt to bring Harrison in alive rather than killing him from the ship and being done with it is his best moment in either of the new films. Whether it's a nagging feeling on its surface about the order he was given or an independent realization that "Hey, these aren't the ideals that we're supposed to be upholding," Kirk gets it here and that scene does a better job of showing that than his peace offering to Nero in Star Trek 2009 did. (and some would say that he didn't really "get it" in that scene at all.)
They continue to push the envelope with Spock, showing just what a Vulcan is capable of when things go pear-shaped. From managing tensions with Uhura after the events of the film's opening, to his own showdown with Harrison, Spock's continual struggle to reconcile his human side with his Vulcan side remains one of the better characterizations of the new films.
Are you a Simon Pegg fan? Did you like him as Scotty in the first one? Then this is the movie for you. In fact, like the first movie, each main cast member gets to do at least one awesome thing, even if it's just give a stunningly threatening speech.
I would very much like to ask Benedict Cumberbatch how the scenery tasted.
Speaking of Cumberbatch, once The Reveal happens, it turns into what you sort of expect if you're familiar with the TOS universe, with more than a few elements of this TNG episode thrown in for good measure.
Speaking of that, oh, the references. A Tribble shows up. There's a
major reference that probably only Deep Space Nine fans will get. Dr.
Carol Marcus herself is a reference to the original timeline and presents some delicious storyline potential moving forward. (Not sure why they had Alice Eve keep her accent for the part but whatever.)
This brings me to my biggest issue with the movie: The climax is... actually pretty anti-climactic. Star Trek fans have figured out what the filmmakers were going for by the time the movie reaches that point. But I think that even if you're not a fan, there's such a feeling of "they're not actually going to do this" that the moment loses a lot of impact. And that's without mentioning that the fix to the problem gets foreshadowed at least twice.
So I can't make this a completely glowing review. Still, it's worth seeing if you enjoy that sort of thing. Plus, there are Klingons.
