Star Trek into Darkness – talking points (no spoilers)

Last week saw the release of Star Trek ‘we couldn’t come up with a decent title for this film’. I went to see it on the weekend and here’s some brief thoughts (with no spoilers for those who haven’t seen it yet).

– I thought it was very good. Not Avengers-good, but still highly enjoyable.

– Two good Star Trek films in a row. Surely a first?

– The interplay between the characters, especially Kirk, Spock and McCoy, is great, probably the best thing about it. I’m not sure why so many people dislike the portrayal of Kirk as a snotty git. I thought the whole point about a young Captain Kirk was that he was a snotty git.

– Things move quickly, perhaps too quickly at times. The pace is so breakneck that sometimes there’s no room for things to breathe. For the most part though I was happy to be carried along for the ride.

– Unsurprisingly Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent, I can’t wait to hear him as Smaug.

– I don’t think I’ll ever 100% get used to seeing Simon Pegg in a film like this . . .

– . . . though it’s not as strange as Noel Clarke’s brief appearance, what the hell? Between this and John Barrowman in Zero Dark Thirty I half expect Arthur Darville to pop up briefly in Man of Steel or something.

– I liked the redshirt jokes.

– Alice Eve *swoons* Sorry, where was I . . .

Some have lamented (and will continue to lament) that this latest iteration of the franchise isn’t ‘proper Star Trek’. Certainly the action quotient has gone up with the last two films and they’re hardly in the league of 2001 in terms of thought-provoking science fiction. But at the same time they’re a long way from being brainless affairs. And frankly they’re miles better than Voyager, Enterprise or over half the films to date. The franchise was lying face down in a puddle before this reboot, and I think the last two films deserve credit for doing a Casino Royale/Batman Begins and successfully resurrecting a moribund series.