Star Trek 2

A love story between Kirk/Spock (Chris Pine/Zachary Quinto) barely gussied up as summer blockbuster, Star Trek Into Darkness finds the crew of the Enterprise on the hunt for a super-strong terrorist (Benedict Cumberbatch, thankfully) who's waging a one-man war on the Federation. Pine and Quinto (Pinto?), refreshing in their first outing, already feel stale in roles that ratchet ever more towards imitation. Cumberbatch's genocidal monster is the film's true standout, though Simon Pegg's Scotty receives a welcome amount of screen time. The same can't be said for the women, as Zoe Saldana gets reduced to worried girlfriend and newcomer Alice Eve seems plugged in to show off her space bra. The biggest problem with STID may be that it's yet another “intellectual” action flick whose heroes muster their ideals to defeat a complicated, well-prepared evil putting them on trial for their sins. Frankly, Star Trek works better in the light. —Jacob Boon