Star Trek Into Darkness is the Kelvin timeline's most divisive entry and its most frustrating, a picture of considerable spectacle and frequent entertainment that is undermined by a central creative decision of such fundamental misjudgement that it prevents the film from achieving the power it clearly aspires to. J.J. Abrams's 2013 sequel is technically accomplished and frequently enjoyable, with action sequences of visual invention and a cast that continues to demonstrate the chemistry established in the 2009 reboot. But the decision to use Khan as the central villain, and to replicate the emotional beats of The Wrath of Khan with a directness that borders on imitation, is a misjudgement the film never recovers from.
At a Glance
Director: J.J. Abrams
Runtime: 132 minutes
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg
Release: 2013
Critics Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, spectacular but frustrating)
Audience Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, divisive)
Review Breakdown
Plot
A Starfleet officer named John Harrison, revealed to be Khan Noonien Singh, conducts a series of terrorist attacks against Starfleet before fleeing to the Klingon homeworld. Kirk and the Enterprise are sent to capture or kill him, becoming entangled in a conspiracy within Starfleet itself. The plot's central problem is its relationship to The Wrath of Khan, a picture it references so directly and so extensively that it generates not homage but comparison, and the comparison is not favourable. The climax, which replicates the emotional beats of Spock's death with Kirk in the sacrificial role, is the franchise's most hollow major sequence, a moment that has not done the emotional work required to make its borrowed resonance feel earned. The decision to conceal Khan's identity for the film's first half is the most damaging structural choice: it prevents the audience from engaging with the character's history, and the revelation lands as a plot twist rather than a dramatic revelation.
Characters
Chris Pine's Kirk is given the most interesting material in his confrontation with mortality and his recognition of the cost of recklessness, and Pine plays it with a conviction and a depth that makes this his strongest franchise performance to that point. Benedict Cumberbatch's Khan is a performance of cold menace and physical authority, a capable villain whose function is undermined by the decision to conceal his identity for so long that the revelation generates confusion rather than excitement, and then to echo emotional beats that cannot be surpassed. Zachary Quinto's Spock is given the most incoherent material in the climax, a sequence that requires him to replicate the emotional register of The Wrath of Khan's most affecting scene without the foundation that made the original so devastating. Pine, Quinto, and Urban continue to demonstrate the chemistry established in the 2009 reboot, and the picture's most enjoyable sequences are those in which their dynamic is most directly expressed. The film is at its best in its first half, before the Khan revelation forces it into a mode of reference and replication it cannot sustain.
Tone
Abrams pitches the picture at the same register of kinetic excitement and character investment as the 2009 reboot, and the approach is largely successful in the opening half. The second half, in which the Khan revelation and the Wrath of Khan references become increasingly dominant, loses the tonal confidence of the earlier sequences and generates an uncertainty that the more spectacular elements cannot compensate for. The picture's best sequences are those that feel most like their own thing: the Klingon homeworld sequence, the opening on Nibiru, the early scenes between Kirk and Pike.
Meaning / Themes
The picture gestures toward themes of institutional corruption, the ethics of pre-emptive violence, and the cost of vengeance, and handles these concerns with enough intelligence in its first half to suggest a more serious film than the one it eventually becomes. The suggestion that Starfleet's militarisation in response to external threats represents a betrayal of its founding values is a worthwhile concern that the picture raises with more confidence than it develops. Admiral Marcus, the film's secondary villain, is a more interesting character than Khan in this respect: a man whose fear has made him dangerous, and whose logic is coherent enough to be genuinely troubling.
Direction
Abrams's direction is technically accomplished, with action sequences of visual invention and a command of pace that makes the 132-minute runtime feel considerably shorter. Where the 2009 reboot's visual energy felt purposeful and propulsive, Into Darkness's spectacle increasingly serves the borrowed emotional architecture of The Wrath of Khan rather than its own story. The film's most visually inventive sequences are in its first half, and the second half relies more heavily on scale than on craft. Michael Giacchino's score maintains the sonic identity established in the previous picture, though the material it is asked to support in the second half is less deserving of it.
Cultural Reception
Into Darkness received mixed reviews on its release and was a major commercial success. Critics were divided between those who found the Khan reveal and the Wrath of Khan references a creative failure and those who found the spectacle and cast sufficient compensation, and it is now regarded as the Kelvin timeline's most contested entry, a picture whose first half is consistently praised and whose second half is consistently condemned. The decision to cast Cumberbatch as Khan and conceal his identity is widely cited as one of the franchise's most significant marketing missteps.
Final Verdict: A spectacular and frequently enjoyable picture undermined by its decision to replicate the emotional beats of The Wrath of Khan without the foundation that made the original so devastating. Benedict Cumberbatch's Khan deserved a more original context. The opening half is the Kelvin timeline at its most confident. The second half is the franchise's most hollow major sequence since The Final Frontier. Into Darkness is the Kelvin timeline's most frustrating entry because it is also, in its first half, its most promising.