According to my friend, MaristPlayBoy, Star Trek: Into Darkness is 3.5/5 stars calling it as he said to me “above average” which I can see where he is coming from because he has more experience in rating films and has seen considerably more than I have, so I trust his judgment. When my friend said it was a perfect 5 star rating, I drew the line and knew I had to make a review of it myself. To be fair, my rating of 2 stars makes the average of all three review a 3.5, thus validating my previous statement in trusting it as a rating, I just want to get in my 2 cents on why I gave the film 2 stars.
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| http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/ |
Before you continue reading, here is what you need to know: this review will be very subjective and I may bring up points that you may not notice or even care about. If I were to try and give a completely objective review from the point of view of what I would consider to be the “average movie goer” then I would give the film more credit. Part of what I didn’t like about the film is that I felt like it was too melodramatic and I felt like the plot was being spoon fed to me. Was the film entertaining? I would objectively say yes. Did the film appeal to many emotions? Again, yes. Did I like? Not as much as I should have. Now I know there are people out there that say you can judge a science fiction film based on actual science, but here is what I have to say to you: If part of what makes a film good is the believably of it, then for me, this film was barely believable even on the scale of science fiction or the scale of Star Trek (taking into account both the series, but more importantly, the last film).
I’m going to start with what turned me off the most, which I recently found out makes a lot of people angry; being a physics major, I cannot watch a film and not point out where the science just completely and utterly breaks down. If you couldn’t give a crap about scientific accuracy, feel free to skip this bit. While I know the writers and editors could not change much of the traditional Star Trek mechanics such as warp drive causing accelerations of 10,000,000 times the acceleration of earth’s gravity and disregarding relativistic effects on time and space at those speeds, there were parts where basic physics was thrown out the window for the sake of dramatic effect. First of all, the mass off a ship in warp drive would make it such that nothing could break off or fall away just due to the amount of gravity that ship would have (more than a planet depending on the speeds) nor could they make a ship that would travel 3 times as fast as warp drive, as warp drive is already near if not at achievable limit. Granted that is both fairly high level of physics and part of the Star Trek traditional writing, so I can come to peace with that, reluctantly.
Where dramatic effect over physics really came into play is near the end. Without giving anything away, I will try to express what utter rubbish the film tried to sell me on, and horribly failed. Firstly, the effects of pressure in space was completelyignored because it would end up in more complex and near impossible measures that wouldn’t work on the time scale of the film as well as the causalities of some audience favorites. While the writing needed that to work as an enjoyable, marketable film that can be later continued, it took a fair amount of believability out of the film, whether at the time or in retrospect. I will say that this is needed for the film, and will give that to the writers.
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| How it should have looked falling |
What really took the cake is changing gravity in free-fall. Anyone who has taken physics at a high school level and remembers anything should know the acceleratory, or “force-like”, effects of gravity do not apply to particles in free-fall. But they needed that in order to have the ever changing direction in gravity and severity of allocation and repair capabilities. Taking into the way to fix that by moving power to “stability”, in a real world situation, there would be no need for this as no power is stability, or whatever was giving them the artificial (yes it would have to have been artificial) gravitational force, and thus could be put towards anything else that could have helped the ship and crew to survive.
Additionally, the film was supposed to be primarily plot driven, and because of that, there was almost no character development, arguably none. The most character development done was in the long monologues from characters throughout the film, and giving credit where credit is due, they were well written and well performed. Needless to say, some of the melodrama surrounding those moments took away from the flow of the plot and devalued the character development as there appears to be minimal individual change from the beginning to end. The points where there is development are short lived and quickly forgotten. While the story is allowed to make some presumptions from the last film and the main plot of series, I fail to see how it could be overlooked entirely. A new character was introduced and her character was so poorly developed that I can’t say I could tell you much about her at all that was explicitly explained to me. On top of that, I argue that if she were to return that the staff did that to make the audience wanting to know more about her. In my mind, she is unjustly forgettable and I would not care if she were not to return.
While the cast is more than competent (as seen in the first film), there were points where the actors were being obnoxious in the level they portrayed their character. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and over-acting where you don’t need it felt like the film belittled my prior knowledge of the character as well as my ability to come to my own conclusion of what I thought of each character. Ultimately, I felt like the film was playing to the lowest common denominator, which I never will find entertaining as a serious work which this had the potential to be. If they focused less on being predictable, melodramatic, and at some points gimmicky, they could have improved the film significantly.
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| This was everywhere. |
Here’s the last thing I will say, and to be honest was blissfully ignorant of after the first film and now painfully aware of: lens flare. While at some points, lens flare does add a dramatic effect (for example: in the desert to emphasize heat, or panning past the sun onto a planet) it was either overused or overlooked because it was everywhere. I wouldn’t have a problem if it didn’t take away too much from the film itself, but when it is covering a face of someone speaking, I can no longer say it doesn’t affect the film. Considering the level of production value I was expecting, I was thoroughly disappointed that the problem was so out of control to the point it made the film less enjoyable and took away from the work of the actors, special effects people, and set designers.
Overall, I give the film 2 stars, mostly subjective to be fair. It did not meet my expectations, fell short of last film, and merely perpetuated what was already set in place while simultaneously setting up the next one. The film was predictable as well as unbelievable, even amongst films under the same genre. I will say that I do not regret seeing the film, as there were moments where I really connected with what was on screen as well certain comedic and realist action scenes that were enjoyable. Similarly, I would not see this film again without reason of seeing it with someone else or something similar. I hope that with many classics made movie, the second movie is just a slump and the third movie makes the whole series. I don’t mind if you don’t agree, so long as you have reason to do so. Thank you.
Brendan McDonald, aka bigmacd101, wrote this article after heated debate post-viewing of the movie in question. He hopes that this review will help JJ Abrams make movies like he used to: good. If you would like to be around for more short rantings, follow him on twitter @bigmacd101.
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