[6.7/10] There’s a lot that I admire about *Star Trek Into Darkness*. It’s wrapped up in character and theme: Kirk learning the importance of playing by the rules and Spock learning when the bonds of friendship means breaking it. It laudably tries to speak to political and societal issues just like *The Original Series* once did. It offers some stellar set pieces, includes some endearing exchanges, and services the whole Enterprise crew quite well.

But it’s also a mess, something which becomes apparent the longer the movie wears on (and boy does it wear on). It jumbles those arcs and themes in a geomagnetic storm of confused plot points and overstuffed action sequences. It taints the timely notions of not losing our principles despite unprecedented threats by dabbling in 9/11 Trutherism. It even indulges in what is, in hindsight, an unfortunate recurring trend in director J.J. Abrams’s filmography, where his movies reveal some secret identity for one of the major players that matters to the audience but not to, you know, anyone actually in the story.

Resolving the good and the bad here becomes difficult. If you stopped this movie at around the two-thirds mark, roughly where Spock engages in his fancy torpedo ruse to doublecross Khan, *Into Darkness* would be a flawed but still quality film. But from that point on, it becomes utterly exhausting, filled to the brim with unnecessary fireworks and fistfights, contorted and awkward wholesale references to *Wrath of Khan*, and games of take-backsies which neuter the dramatic sacrifices and concomitant lessons that are supposed to emerge from them. The most grievous insult you can level at this movie is that the longer it goes, the worst it gets.

That’s a shame, because it starts so strong! The opening sequence is like an episode of *The Original Series* in miniature. The return and demise of Captain Pike is powerful (and Bruce Greenwood once again commands the frame with minimal screen time). The setup of philosophical and personal conflicts between Kirk and Spock is another strength carried over from the last *Star Trek* film, and the initial hints of one of Starfleet’s own turning on the organization with devastating effects sets things up for a great adventure.

*Into Darkness* just cannot live up to that promise. There’s still plenty of great moments and scenes after those points. Say what you will about Abrams and his hit-or-miss collaborators like Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof, but the group knows how to bounce characters off of one another amid potent themes, even if they can’t quite nail any of it down.

While some have more to do than others, pretty much every member of the crew gets time to shine, from Scotty’s principled stand, to Uhura standing up to the Klingons, to Sulu’s time in the captain’s chair, to Chekov’s filling in as chief engineer, to Bones’s usual grumpy wit. Even when the movie’s narrative is falling apart or suffering from yet another overblown action scene, it’s just fun to spend time with these characters, which buoys the film’s weaker moments.

Sadly, the same can’t be said for the film’s new legacy characters. *Into Darkness* includes dramatic reveals that the two new denizens of the Enterprise are Khan Noonien Singh and Carol Marcus, names that mean nothing to anyone in the audience who hasn’t seen *Wrath of Khan* and which mean nothing to the movie’s characters since, you know, they haven’t seen that film either. At least with Marcus, there’s some in-universe significance to her hidden identity given that she’s the progeny of the thirty-seventh villainous admiral in Trek history, but she has next to nothing in common with her *Star Trek II* counterpart, making the in-name-only addition a head-scratcher.

Likewise, Khan is a complete misfire here. Separate and apart from the whitewashing of the character, which is its own meta-problem with the film, he’s just a dull bad guy. His motivations are jumbled in J.J.’s latest mystery box and twist-generating machine, rendering him little more than the latest undifferentiated bland blockbuster badass. Benedict Cumberbatch gives a weak performance, one that’s overly bombastic but lacking the human element behind all the theatrical mustache-twirling. Without the connection to a different, better movie, he would be totally forgettable.

The saving grace on that front is Peter Weller as Admiral Marcus, the morally compromised Starfleet leader who wants to turn this group of peaceful explorers into an unstoppable military force. Weller, who made his franchise bones with a great turn on *Star Trek: Enterprise* (an impressive feat in and of itself), carries the gravitas, conviction, and shitheel qualities to make a good villain and avatar for how Starfleet has lost its way. He gets lost in the narrative soup that is Khan’s array of schemes and eventually take over as the movie’s big bad, but he’s a better vessel for *Into Darkness*’s themes than Khan, who’s really only a vessel for unfortunate Trutherism and/or games of “Hey, remember *Wrath of Khan*.

It’s a shame, because the movie plays with some good ideas, even as they get mangled in the beaucoup crashes and explosions and bouts of hand-to-hand combat. After roughly the opening act, the movie all but loses any downtime for the characters to reflect on what’s happened or what’s happening, instead just resorting to bang-bang-bang arrays of well-done but over-quota’d action set pieces. Some of these are memorable -- particularly the Enterprise plummet below the clouds only to rise back up triumphantly -- but most of them become static when stacked on top of one another.

That avalanche of images of death and destruction are part and parcel with *Into Darkness*’s examination of the wounded psyche of post-9/11 America. Abrams and company posit a once-noble body, believing that a war of civilizations is inevitable, and turning away from peaceful ideals in favor of arms races, provocations, and the equivalent of preemptive strikes. Abrams and company aren’t subtle about these concepts or the damage they see in them, but the Federation makes for a good stalking horse to explore them nonetheless. From 1966 onward, *Star Trek* has long been a sci-fi vessel for social and political commentary, and it’s nice to see that legacy upheld.

Moreover, before the film sinks in a sea of homages and explosions, it roots those ideas in character. Pike essentially outlines Kirk’s arc here, going from believing that the rules don’t apply to him and being ready to take reckless risks, to recognizing the utility of those guardrails and seeing how his risk-taking can harm other people. Spock, once again, has an equal and opposite journey, beginning with his expected Vulcan detachment and rule-bound honesty, to learning how to bend the rules when necessary and, more importantly, how the bonds of friendship can rightly affect your decision-making, even as a commander. As with so much in *Into Darkness*, those character stories get mixed up at various points, as the film as a whole gets more disjointed, but there’s strong throughlines for both characters.

The one unmitigated positive this movie draws from its Ricardo Montalban-starring predecessor is notions of the value of life and the hollowness of retribution. From Spock and Kirk trading “I saved your life” moments, to Khan being driven by trying to preserve the lives of his fellow frozen augments, to Kirk offering himself up to the Admiral in order to spare his crew, there’s an acknowledgment that the costs here are not a mere “bloody nose.” In a franchise known for disposable redshirts, the importance of saving your friends, even if it means a personal sacrifice, is true to the broader spirit of *Star Trek*.

In the same way, *Into Darkness* treats revenge as a futile and harmful goal. Kirk wants to honor the memory of his murdered surrogate father by taking out his killer, only to realize that the better tribute is to live up to his, and Starfleet’s, ideals. Spock turns furious upon the (very temporary) death of his best friend, wanting vengeance on Khan only to learn that restraining his anger and keeping the dastard alive is the only way to save that friend. Hell, in keeping with the sociopolitical themes, there’s an argument that Admiral Marcus wants revenge on the Klingons for their past actions, representing the idea that efforts in that direction destabilize us and make us lose the people we are and hoped to be.

That’s all commendable, complex material. In a more streamlined film, one less beholden to and reliant upon other entries in the franchise, it could shine and bolster another stirring space adventure. Instead, those powerful notions are just hidden gems in a thicket of questionable choices, which only grow in duration and density and obscure more of the movie’s praise-worthy qualities as the viewer gets closer to the end credits. There’s still so much to like about *Star Trek Into Darkness*. I just wish it wasn’t so eclipsed by how much there is to be disappointed by.