IMAX: Star Trek Into Darkness // Film Review

Space. The final frontier. These are the witterings of a very excited Sci-Fi geek as the most famous crew of men to ever crew a starship return to, er, crew a starship. Not just any starship either – the USS Enterprise. Yes, it’s the return of Kirk’s merry band of interracial, international, interstellar space cowboys as one of the oldest franchises to exist in the genre returns to the big screens this month. For those of you who may have missed the last film, this is the second Star Trek movie in J. J. Abrahms re-booted, alternate timeline, and as was pointed out in the first, all it takes is a little temporal interference to change the course of history and turn Kirk into the kind of gung-ho maverick that men want to be and green, alien women want to sleep with. All this without upsetting the Trekkies with nasty paradoxes and such. Good work. It’s a good job really, because this time it appears that the crew may face their toughest baddie yet (or again, if rumours are to be believed) as Starfleet comes under attack on home soil from a dangerous terrorist played by the brilliant Bumblesquat Cumberband. Who? You know, that guy from Sherlock. Has Kirk met his match, or will he and his shining cast of a crew help him triumph? More importantly, will the film be any good? I really enjoyed the first film; Chris Pine is brilliant as the rebellious, young Kirk and the visual effects are out of this world, if you’ll pardon the pun, and will undoubtedly gleam in the IMAX screen. There’s a lot of Sci-Fi in the cinema at the moment, but when this comes out it’s going to prove that you just can’t beat the best. Engage.