Skip to main content

NOT a REVIEW: JJ Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness

 Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch. Dir. JJ Abrams, Paramount, 2013


I do not write up everything I see. Based on the contents of a previous post, I sometimes don't write up ANYthing I see. Some movies don't need another review and inspire no more comment than that. Most of those tend to be bad movies which are simply forgettable, not interestingly bad in some way worthy of a few grafs. Not offensive, not problematical, not colossal flops, just Hollywood product with no apparent reason for existing.

Sometimes, though, the opposite is true. Look at Star Trek Into Darkness. I have no idea what to say about it. I saw it years ago and liked it and snapped it up the other day and enjoyed it just as much. The cast is good, Cumberbatch is a great villain, the action comes at the viewer almost nonstop, there's plenty of laughs, and a tearjerking moment most Trek fans will love. As I said, I liked it a lot.

But so what? Star Trek Into Darkness inspires no journey into memories, no musing on my past, no fresh perspective, no hot takes on - anything. It's a highly enjoyable sequel to a successful reboot, keeping its franchise, the most durable in Hollywood, alive, at least until 2015's Star Trek Beyond brought the series to a temporary halt. (A new instalment, exec produced and possibly written by Quentin Tarantino, is reportedly in the pipeline.) But, again, so what?

Star Trek Into Darkness makes a thoroughly satisfying Saturday night - or Wednesday afternoon - at the movies if a rollicking scifi actioner is your pleasure. And that's it. It takes more grafs to say why the movie's not special enough to write about than to praise.

This concludes my nonexistent writeup for Star Trek Into Darkness. 

Comments

  1. EllieApril 19, 2021 at 1:50 PM

    This is how I feel about Wodehouse novels. I've been keeping a journal of everything I read since 2019 and looking back through it, every time I knock out a quick Wodehouse story I dutifully note it down and the comment is always, "What's there to say? Of course it was fun, of course it was frothy, of course I loved it." (I also liked but barely remember the Star Trek movie. I have a problem with Benedict Cumberbatch which is that I hate his name, and every time I see him I devote a little corner of my brain entirely to turning over the name in my mind and wondering why everybody seems to find him so devastatingly handsome, and another corner wondering why I give a shit since he's a great actor).

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cuck Fiction: Charles Vidor's GILDA

 Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George MacReady, Steven Geray. Dir. Charles Vidor, Columbia, 1946 My favorite erotic fiction deals with cuckolding. The stories fascinate me. As people, cuckolds don't seem to think they're worth nice things. Or happiness. On the other hand, the cuckolding partners and their multiple lovers don't come over as the clear victors, either. Part of the fascination - maybe most of it - lies in trying to decide which party comes out the MOST degraded.  Is it the submissive, sensitive husband and his unsatisfactory size/staying power? Is it the "slutwife" who finds satiety in being transformed into a fuckdoll to humilate her husband? Or is it the lover - often black - who gets to degrade the sexy white lady but who doesn't otherwise matter? As in bdsm scenes, if the cuck is most degraded, that means he also "wins," as his desires to see his wife turned into a promiscuous slut while he gets to be bi without shame are most fulfi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Obligatory TL;DR Statement of Purpose

 A not-so-brief explanatory note as to how this blog works: I can't recall a time when movies weren't my passion, my compulsion, my addiction. Ever since my parents took me to see Disney's Bedknobs&Broomsticks, I've been hopeless. Born in 1967, I grew up with free range parents. They took my brother and me to all kinds of movies, often using Hollywood as a babysitter. We saw movies about which many parents today would cluck their tongues (though nothing R-rated until I was 12. My first R-rated movie was MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN.) Though my parents were professionals and we grew up affluent, our home saw its share of dysfunction. Dad was in the house, but not often present. Mom, stressed and disappointed at discovering her marriage wasn't an equal partnership, took out her frustrations on me.  Without getting too far into the weeds, let me just say my adult life has been far from typical middle class stability. I've never had a career. Never finished ...
3 comments
Read more

Personal Movies: Robert Redford's ORDINARY PEOPLE

 Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore Timothy Hutton, Judd Hitsch. Dir. Robert Redford, Paramount, 1980 I have been fortunate - I suppose that's the word - to see my story on the big screen. Twice. We talk of identifying with movies, with characters, of moviegoing being our identity, but I never went to the movies expecting to see my life reflected back to me. The second time it occurred, with Jonathan Demme's RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, it at least had the benefit of being about a woman, so I can't get all theatrical about how I totes get Rachel. I don't, but I went home from treatment for family events and man, it looked a lot like that movie. The first time it happened, with Robert Redford's directorial debut, ORDINARY PEOPLE, it was a guy, and that guy, if older than my 13 years, lived a life that looked a whole lot like mine, minus the dead brother. In my case, my brother, my parents' biological son, is extravagantly the favorite, and my Mom & I know the...
Post a Comment
Read more