Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Pine in ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’: did they deliver?
CB & I went to see Star Trek Into Darkness this weekend! It was really good. I think we both liked it a lot. I think CB disagreed when I started bitching about the politics and economics of the Star Fleet though. Like, I just can’t see how a League of Nations-type Star Fleet justifies its expenditures purely for peaceful exploration purposes (hippies in space!). I can only see a NATO-type organization spending that kind of money under the condition that space will be militarized, like the Star Fleet as Earth-defense. You’d be surprised how that argument relates to Star Trek Into Darkness.
Anyway, it seems that many people agreed with the critics and STID “won” the weekend box office, although it didn’t make as much as box-office watchers were predicting. Analysts claimed STID would make $80-100 million opening weekend in North America, and it made $84.1 million IF you include IMAX showings which started on Wednesday. CB & I saw it on 3D, and it was good although I don’t think the 3D really added that much to the experience. That being said, it’s a big, enjoyable action/sci-fi movie and I’m sure it will rake in something like $600 million worldwide. STID cost $190 million to make, and God knows how much they spent to promote it. So it will make a lot of money, for sure, and everybody is really happy that the film is already so successful overseas. They’ll definitely make a third film.
The rest of this weekend’s box office: Iron Man 3 made $35.2 million in its third week (this is just in North American receipts), then The Great Gatsby with $23.4 million, then Pain & Gain with $3.1 million.
My mini-review of STID, with SPOILERS:
STID was a very enjoyable film and the plot was pretty cohesive, although there were some plot points which could have been better explained, especially in the third act when it seemed like (spoiler!) a bunch of civilians were killed in a Star Fleet catastrophe on earth and those lost lives were barely acknowledged. I also thought the political/military message got sort of convoluted – like, one character wants the Star Fleet to have “first strike” capabilities and I don’t understand why that’s a bad thing.
It also felt like there was supposed to be some strong emotional attachment to some of the characters (Kirk and that father-figure dude played by Bruce Greenwood) and it just seemed like… boring boy drama. Like, I didn’t care at all. I ended up thinking that Kirk was kind of dull and vanilla, but I guess that’s the problem with playing the lead character in these kinds of films – everybody else gets to be quirky and weird and Kirk only gets a few wisecracks.
Obviously, Benedict Cumberbatch was amazing, but I was expecting that. What pleasantly surprised me was how good he was at being a very physical villain. Like, he was BIG. And strong. And he was leaping around and doing crazy stunts and he managed to be delicious and creepy and scary and HOT all at the same time. It helped that this film was literally the best he’s ever looked on camera. His hair looked amazing. His extra muscle weight worked. His skin was lovely. They shot him from certain angles to make him look like he had a chin. It was great!
The real surprise for me was how much I enjoyed Zachary Quinto’s Spock. Quinto really kills it as Spock – he’s funny and interesting and immensely watchable. Spock is the real star! Karl Urban as Bones annoyed me, and I hate to say it, but Simon Pegg’s Scotty annoyed me too. I didn’t mind Zoe Saldana at all (shocking), John Cho (Sulu) was lovely and my candidate for WORST performance was Anton Yelchin doing an especially hokey Russian accent as Chekov. Alice Eve was a snooze, and if she gets with Captain Kirk in the next movie, they will be the most boringly vanilla couple ever.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
