I'm not a fan of Star Trek, thus it doesn't matter if this film is not the Star Trek I remember, because I haven't seen any Star Trek before this new series.
The new film begins with a bang, almost literally. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is still captain of the starship Enterpise away on his mission of gathering information. However, the planet that they are currently exploring is about to be destroyed, by a volcano about to erupt. In order to stop this, Spock (Zachary Quinto, great) down to stop the explosion. However, his harness breaks and he prepares to die not wanting Kirk to break protocol to save his life. Kirk emerges on the Enterprise out of the water, exposing themselves to the native people who are later described as barely even able to invent the wheel just to save him. Kirk doesn't put this break of procedure down in his report though Spock does. Kirk is punished for this and is demoted to first officer instead.
Then an even bigger crisis arises. A man in London has a dying daughter and makes a deal with the devil to save her. He blows up his work office only after sending a message to alert others. Captains and their first officers gather to discuss what should be done concerning this evil John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). Only Kirk realizes that this is a problem and he is right. The conference is attacked and his mentor and beloved friend, Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) is killed. Kirk vows revenge so he assemblies his crew to journey to Harrison's hold-out to destroy him.
Despite being angry at Spock, he still reappoints Spock as his first officer. Their ship is disabled on the edge of enemy territory and from there, Spock, Kirk and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) leave the ship to try and negotiate peace with Harrison, though that doesn't work out well. Instead, the natives attack and Harrison ends up saving their lives. Perhaps there is more to him than it seems.
You'd be right. Harrison's true identity is Khan and the starfleet commander, Marcus (RoboCop's Peter Weller) is the actual evil guy. Khan was originally assigned a peace mission but he and his crew have been under a deep freeze for the past three hundred years. Khan will do anything to save his crew, whose bodies remain in the deep freeze loaded into specially designed missiles.
Briefly, Kirk and Khan join forces to attack Marcus, who is truly evil. Even his own daughter, Carol (Alice Eve) who sneaked herself onto the ship is ashamed to call him her father. However, Khan also has his own agenda. He is brilliant but extremely evil. He literally smashes Marcus's head with his hands.
Despite the bargain he made with Spock to whom Kirk appointed the ship, he turns on them and proceeds to destroy the Enterprise. To remedy the problem, Kirk dies after fixing the inner radiation power source. The scene is touching and heart felt. Spock, despite being half vulcan and unable to show emotions, cries at losing his best friend. I was shocked that they actually killed him off.
This leads to an epic fight scene between Spock and Khan and Spock is furious. It is only because Uhura comes down and stops him that he does not actually kill him. Khan's blood has magical healing powers and thus Kirk is able to come back to life. Khan is, like his crew, in the deep freeze and Kirk is back to being captain of the Enterprise, this time maybe they'll actually be able to explore and gather information.
The film is fantastic with several funny lines and great emotional scenes mixed in with tons of action. The characters are once again, excellent, and return in fine form. Bones (Karl Urban) is great as the ship's doctor who saves Kirk's life. The engineer Scott (Simon Pegg) even resigns because he doesn't know what's in the missiles, but he comes through, allowing Khan and Kirk to have access to Marcus's enemy ship which he especially designed to destroy Khan so he can be saved. John Cho and Anton Yelchin also reprise their roles as the pilot Sulu and navigator Chekov respectfully and once again do great work. The film wouldn't be the same without them, so I'm grateful for their presence.
Human relationships are even somewhat explored in this film, with the interesting relationship between Spock and Uhura. She gets mad at him when he is ready to die inside the volcano and is unwilling to let Kirk break protocol. But they manage to work things out, though I do wish at the end, something more would have happened between the two of them. But if that is my main problem with the film, which it is, then there aren't many issues with the film at all. And who will end up with Carol? Bones or Kirk? It doesn't matter; that's for the next film which hopefully will be released sooner than four years from now.
The editing is flawless with great special effects and serious issues are discussed in more honestly than the majority of independent films. This is great film, with excellent acting and devilish facial expressions courtesy of Cumberbatch and the death scene is truly devastating, causing even me to cry. This film is even better than the first. Grade: A
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