Feature

Reviewing Star Trek Into Darkness with gifs

Matt

7th May 2013

So you may have seen our official, in-depth Star Trek Into Darkness review posted a few days ago. But what’s that you say? Tl; dr? Right, so what would you prefer? A quick, short review cut down into bite-size chunks and, I don’t know, accompanied by funny moving pictures? (*sigh*) Make it so...


Star Trek Into Darkness is non-stop adventure through and through, so much so that the film seems to always be constantly accelerating.

But the action just keeps on going and never really lets up.

Abrams manages to maintain the same sense of light-hearted fun that held together his previous effort, including some nice, charming moments with Bones and Scotty.

As well as developing storylines raised in the previous film, such as the idea of Spock maintaining a relationship.

More than anything though, this is a film made for die-hard fans, filled with endless nods to the existing Star Trek universe.

But there are far too many of these in total, and the film relies too heavily on cute in-jokes and homages rather than explore anything new.

Meanwhile, the actual story gets increasingly confused and out of hand, leading to lots of flaws, cracks and outright plot holes.

However, it’s almost as if the writers know this and, just when you might start to question the dubious logic of a particular scene, they throw in another fun reference to distract you.

The worst offender in the whole film is a midway ‘twist’…

…which then allows the final third of the film to just rely on an already familiar storyline to do all the work, like a security blanket for the writers.

In fact, from that moment on, it’s a relentless slog of playing out what we can already guess will happen.

Disappointingly, there is a moment towards the end that allows potential for the film to act boldly and ramp up dramatic tension…

…but this is waved away after a swift five minutes in the most absurd way possible.

Overall, the film acts as an enjoyable distraction, but, after it is over, you will be struck by the sudden realisation that none of it made all that much sense.

There are certainly lots of triumphant moments for fans…

…and there is still much to admire in the pure spectacle of the big action sequences…

…but, all in all, the film is a wasted opportunity to do something fresh and exciting with the franchise.

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