The story focuses on Khan, who was one of the bigger villains for the franchise from what I understand. I never really got into Star Trek as a show, or any of the following series. Khan launches a terrorist attack on military archives, killing quite a few people in the process. He then goes after some of the higher ups in starfleet using the previous attack to draw them out. Starfleet figures out where he has gone and sends Kirk and the Enterprise after him. Their mission is to kill him and leave the area before the locals find out. Khan is hiding on the Klingon home world, and Starfleet does not wish to start a war. Obviously a lot more happens, but we are already in spoiler territory, so let me just leave it at that for now.
Let me start with the Klingons, I always thought they looked horrible on the tv show. However in the movie they have been redone. They have this really cool looking armor on that covers their entire head. And when they take it off, instead of the odd makeup job that Warf was, we get some pretty tough looking bad guys. Everything in the movie looks well done, from the individual aliens to the special effects used in space. You do have the excessive lens flare that people liked to joke about from the first movie, though it did seemed slightly toned down. The visuals were always stunning, and the opening scene used contrasting colors very nicely to draw you in. Even the final showdown which takes place on top of a moving transport came out nicely. As far as the effects and designs go, I had nothing to fault them on. It was a very visually appealing movie.
As far as acting goes, really no complaints there either. I will always see Quinto as Sylar, or more recently Dr. Oliver Thredson from American Horror. So him as Spock always just throws me. Frankly I prefer him in the more sinister roles, but he always puts forth a good performance regardless. The big addition to this movie was Benedict Cumberbatch, famous more recently for the tv show Sherlock. He did really well with the role of Khan. He has a vibe about him that just seems off, that plus his natural talent made him easily the high point of the film. Peter Weller did come across kind of flat in some of his scenes, but overall the acting was very good. They really do have a good cast for these movies, filled with easily recognizable faces and notable actors.
So far I have been giving the movie mostly praises, and if I talked about the action sequences that would probably continue, however earlier I came off as not really liking it. If it was not the acting, the effects, or even the action then....what was it? It is honestly a bit hard to discuss without going into the spoilers, so I will just say this vague statement. The movie has no consequences, and it gives away its big ending in a scene that was very out of place. The next paragraph will go into more details, so please skip it if you don't want to know key plot points of the film.
Once again, this paragraph will contain spoilers for the ending of the film. Dr McCoy, or Bones, has a scene where he is playing with a dead Tribble. If I remember correctly, Starfleet does not allow transportation of Tribbles, but maybe because it was dead nobody cared. Bones decides he can use Khans super blood to bring the Tribble back to life. This is all given to you between a scene where the Enterprise has just been basically captured. Kirk has decided to align with Khan and take over the enemy ship. The whole scene was very out of place, and just seemed tacked on. It also tells you, hey we can bring dead things back to life.....gosh I wonder what will happen next. This takes any sort of tension out of the big ending, and Kirk killing himself to save everybody just loses its impact. I am sitting there going, yeah but they can just bring him back to life. All they have to do is beat the bad guy, which I had a feeling they were going to do anyways. There was also a scene were Khan could have killed Spock and got away, but instead decided to help him up onto the moving transport so he could fight him. The entire ending seemed off, and poorly thought out.
Spoilers are over, please continue from this point.
So we have a weak finish, and a movie that looses all steam mid way through. The action scenes are decent, but nothing special. And I don't recall much if any space combat other then one very short scene. There was some humor in the movie, but overall the entire package just felt lacking. I also own this movie, paid full price for it. But after viewing it one time, I can safely say I have no interest in seeing it again. I am sure the franchise will continue, and in a few years I will be sitting here writing about Star Trek 3. And I am also sure they will continue to be mediocre at best.
your sister would love to have your copy :)
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