Link: Star Trek Into Darkness

Summary: Kirk and Spock try to stop a mysterious terrorist villain who has an evil plan.

Thoughts: I’ve never seen anything else from the world of Star Trek other than this film and Mr. Abrams’s previous Star Trek film, so I can’t compare this installment with past incarnations of the franchise.  So my reaction to this film comes from experiencing it in and of itself, and as a sequel.  I can’t say I much cared for it.  It felt like it was trying to create something emotionally between Kirk and Spock’s relationship, but it falls completely flat.  Spock, with all his logic, should be able to, you know, actually use it to understand how other people feel, even if he lacks much natural ability to empathize.  Similarly, Kirk, as a human, should also be able to use logic and empathy to understand Spock’s position.  The fact that neither character can figure things out makes them both seem incredibly stupid, unrealistic, hard to relate to, and certainly impossible to have any emotional interest in.  And this pretty much ruins the story for me, which is otherwise a pretty standard sci-fi action film.  And without any emotional depth, it all comes across as bland.  And as this seems to be a consistent problem with Mr. Abrams’s work, I don’t have really any hopes for the next Star Wars film.  (Though at least it’s guaranteed to be better than Episode 1, for even the worst Abrams film is a masterpiece compared to that.)