The rebooted crew are back and this time they're going into darkness? Trekking into darkness? How does this title fit the story? Moving on. The first film in this new era reboot was a huge success and rightly so, it was an exciting sci-fi romp, does this remake/re-imagining of 'The Wrath of Khan' work just as well?
We kick off admittedly with a very nice looking yet clear Indy rip, all that was missing was a giant rolling boulder. Instantly you can see this film is gonna be a treat visually, modern films have gotten to a point now where they do (can) look extremely polished and slick, and this film is easily top of its game in the effects department, it's beautiful. I do especially love futuristic London and the look of future Earth in general, so much detail, so much going on, the newer Star Wars trilogy pales in comparison. I could of course mention the immense use of lens flare but I think everyone knows that now and it merely blends into the background, some looking very nice.
Let's get down n dirty here, the plot, the main issue of the film is the badly written, disjointed, confusing plot which makes no sense. I'm still not sure what exactly was the point of half of it. Marcus finds Khan and his crew floating around in space I believe, but where exactly? Why was Khan in suspended animation in the first place? Whose ship was he on? etc...Nothing is given away there. Now I think about it once Khan was discovered how did anyone know he and his mates were genetically-engineered superhumans? And why awake just one? Anyhow Marcus wants Khan to develop advanced technology and weapons...but the guy is 300 years old, surely he's gonna be slightly out of touch with modern day tech? Right?? Guess not.
My point is does this new movie follow on from the original Star Trek episode 'Space Seed' as did 'Wrath of Khan'? Did that happen in this rebooted alternate timeline? if so then fine, most of my questions are answered. If not then there are some mighty plot holes here...or we would need to see that alternate version of 'Space Seed'.
The character story arcs are just all over the place with little sense or connection, it's all so vague. The only reason Khan doesn't set off the bomb in London by himself at the start is so they could introduce his super blood into the plot. There is no other reason for that entire sequence with the black man and his daughter. Oh and an exploding ring? Eh? Wut?? On the subject of Khan's super blood why does everyone tear around trying to get his blood, why not use some of the blood from his crew? Surely theirs is super too, isn't it?
On the subject of Khan I really must say I don't understand what the fuss was about with Cumberbatch. Now I'm not saying the guy did a bad job, not at all, but as far as I'm concerned his performance on the whole was just very average. His entire range boiled down to over pronunciation of his words. As a character he wasn't particularly interesting either, a very bland generic looking bad guy (or was he? He just wanted to save his crew) who blended into the background, except when he's killing everyone like an unstoppable superhero (Khan never did that in the original second Trek film).
I also think Cumberbatch is miscast in the role frankly, he's so dull looking, so uniform, that it destroys the character of Khan. There is nothing special about the guy anymore, no flair, no razzle-dazzle, it's just a bog standard looking white guy. Why didn't they cast a man from South Asia or at least someone with a clear ethnic background. Old Spock calls him by his full name in the film, Khan Noonien Singh, but he's white!! Clearly white British with a British accent for Pete's sake.
And while I'm on the subject what exactly is Khan's game? Save his crew...check, errrr...and then? What is his goal? Old Spock reckons to kill everyone inferior to himself, but Khan never says that I believe, I don't think we ever get told what he actually wants to do...after saving his crew.
On the whole there is so much badly written plot in here it just ruins whatever it was they were trying for...and I'm not sure what really. Khan's super blood cures death and they have him captured so that means no one will ever die in this universe now? There is a cure for most death related injuries and a good supply of blood if they can keep Khan alive. As said old Spock turns up AGAIN! Whenever they are really in the shit he just pops up and tells them everything they need to know almost like a videogame cheat. Yet how the hell does he manage to get in contact with them? It's like some kind of Jedi trick. There also seems to be interplanetary transporters now, sooooo doesn't that do away with the need for spaceships? Oh and cold fusion doesn't...ah who cares.
The idea of a cure for death brings me to the death of Spock in the classic film. That was a shockwave for everybody at the time, I don't think people saw it coming, no one really knew if he was gonna come back, could he come back? Was that it for the lovable legendary Spock? In this film we see Kirk get killed in a silly play on that iconic sequence. The difference is we know for a fact he won't really be dead because he is the main flipping character and we've only been given two films in the new reboot franchise, so of course he will come back. This makes the entire scene completely devoid of any emotion, in fact it's pretty pointless, utter fail of a scene.
I feel bad giving this a poor write up because there are elements in this I like, loved the new look Klingons and their Predator-like masks, nicely aggressive and intimidating and I enjoyed the space jump sequence. The main problem is this isn't a Star Trek film, it's not a proper Trekkie flick, it's merely a generic action flick set in space that just happens to be the Star Trek universe. You could quite easily replace the Star Trek crew with John McClane and call it a Die Hard film. Long gone are the slow-moving, character based genuine science fiction Trek films. Its all shooting, death, explosions, and the obligatory destruction porn which seems to be a complete requirement these days.
As a stand-alone film the first Trek reboot was a fine film, this sequel is simply loud messy action folly with lavish visuals. There isn't really much I can recommend here if you're a true Star Trek fan. Regular film goers may enjoy it of course but that's only because this isn't proper Star Trek (which is what they were aiming for). All I can say is I really hope they don't try and reuse more of the classic films, why not try and make your own classic cinematic moments instead of copying someone else's. A reasonably entertaining watch no doubt but hardly memorable or groundbreaking, wholly average, very lazy, very jumbled, half a mark up for visuals.
5/10
I liked this film a bit more than you but I think I preferred the first one. I'll review it myself soon so you can see exactly what I though :P
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