Nepali Times

For everyone who has loved the adventure and romance of Star Trek in the past, this latest installment will not disappoint. The beauty and mysteries of space, the final frontier, are celebrated, as they always have been in the series and in the previous eleven feature films that have been extrapolated from the hugely popular long running television show.

Star Trek Into Darkness is actually a sequel to the reboot of Star Trek that came out in 2009. Directed by the very talented JJ Abrams, a sci-fi savant that is changing the Hollywood formula (for the better), that Star Trek is an origin story chronicling the childhood and recruitment of Captain James T Kirk (played by Chris Pine) to Star Fleet and his subsequent meetings with the people who are to become the backbone of his team on his ship (the beloved and hardy ‘Enterprise’): ‘Scotty’ (Simon Pegg) the chief engineer, ‘Bones’ (Karl Urban) the ship’s doctor, Sulu (John Cho) the third officer, Uhura (Zoe Saldana) the communications officer, and of course, Spock (played by both Zachary Quinto and the original Leonard Nimoy in a plot complication that boggles the mind but is highly enjoyable.

While that film lay the groundwork to establish these new faces playing old characters, this new film has confidently picked up on the core ethos of Star Trek by beginning with an intense action sequence where Bones and Kirk are trying to escape from an alien civilisation that they are actually trying to save by neutralising a volcano that is about to destroy their planet. In the course of trying to save the planet, Spock becomes trapped on the volcano and Kirk makes a decision to allow the primitive aliens to see the Enterprise in order to save his best friend.

As a result of these choices, the Enterprise is taken away from Kirk for violating the Prime Directive of Star Fleet code and Kirk is furious at Spock for very properly filing an official report on the incident. This is the classic conflict at the heart of the friendship between these two very different characters - the impulsive Kirk and the logical Spock.

Enter, the great Benedict Cumberbatch as Commander John Harrison, reportedly a valuable agent gone rogue who blows up a section of Star Fleet in London. When Harrison decamps to Kronos, the Klingon home world, Kirk is reinstated to seek him out and destroy him with the help of 72 new long range photon torpedo’s designed specifically in anticipation of the encroaching conflict with the bellicose Klingons.

As Kirk struggles with his crew who are appalled at the directive to kill Harrison without a fair trial, the true strengths of this film become apparent. Not only is Star Trek Into Darkness a vividly imagined and riveting action movie, it is also a film that asks the right questions, about morality, responsibility, and above all a cosmic code where being a good human (well, in this case a citizen of this universe) means doing the right thing and, above all, respecting the life of other civilisations.

The dialogue is fast, witty, and to the point. The sequences set in space are jaw dropping, fully justifying the use of 3D, and all the characters that we know and love are played extraordinarily well by these young new actors with passion and fiery zeal.

As Kirk and his team grapple with betrayal and the frightening, cold intelligence of Cumberbatch’s character, we are treated to a story where all the characters are given their due, and as usual the Enterprise (very much a character in her own right) saves the day. When she rises out of the sky all battered but still alive you can’t help but want to stand on your seat and cheer.

Star Trek Into Darkness, a film directed by JJ Abrams