CHRIS PINE IN STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

Another iteration of the popular franchise, no more, no less

The hardest part of watching Abrams' second Star Trek film, spun out of the TV series declared dead in a famous Saturday Night Live episode 37 years ago, as was true of Abrams' more enjoyable 2009 start, is to grasp that the opening ten minutes or so are not a parody. I mean, that blurry red forest, and all these people caked with white mud in yellow swaddling clothes, really? They're part of the actual story? I thought the Enterprise crew was going to turn out to be watching and laughing at an old (sub-"Lost," sub-"Game of Thrones") TV show. But it doesn't matter, because these movies are primarily made for fan boys, and cultists, just as the ones based on DC and Marvel comic books are. The 2009 reboot, Star Trek, introduced a new cast. It would have to, since the original Captain Kirk and Spock are in their early eighties now (Nimoy appears briefly, his oratory even today still clearly more distinctive than that of his mediocre clone, Zachary Quinto). Well, Star Trek '09, was fun, because the role of the protagonist, Captain Kirk's son, cast as a wild boy with huge potential but no ability to follow rules, fit Chris Pine like a glove. In Abrams-Trek Volume 2, Pine is still bursting with testosterone and his pink lips, ice blue eyes that seem back-lit, and moth eyebrows still make him an attractive and larger-than-life young hero, even in the somehow incredibly unflattering light of the Enterprise's command module. But the bloom has gone off the reboot. Kirk Junior's rakishness is just sketched in hastily this time. Except for some very confused and hackneyed jokes on Spock's Klingon emotionlessness, the focus is less on character and more on action, without the action's being really suspenseful or interesting. There's nothing on offer but a new super villain (Benedict Cumberbatch) whose vapid claims to our attention are restricted to tallness, autistic affect one would have thought already well handled by Spock, and the childish assertion that he's "better" at "everything." Add a lot of noise and running around in CGI-enhanced space vehicles and you're got this movie. It's not terrible. It's appallingly competent. It proves what should have been obvious despite Abrams' over-praised Spielberg-lite Super Eight: this director is a skillful hack, nothing more. He's got a good cast and a popoular franchise, and he's cranked out one more iteration. Cumberbach has played Stephen Hawking and William Pitt, and he's coming as Julian Assange. We wish him luck with that one.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.